Among the Damned
by The Other Perspective
Summary: My Games life was an untouchable cycle of waiting. Waiting for either of my timid, generally unskilled but golden hearted tributes to get a cannon. At this point, I wasn't really being pessimistic with that statement, I was facing the facts. Still didn't make the process any more enjoyable.
1. Calling all children of Panem

Welcome to yet another one of those SYOT Fics… Well, I have hopes that it won't be so same-old, but the only way to figure that out is to come along for the ride.

You should know that this is a sequel, but in Games world that doesn't mean much. It would be fine as a stand-alone as well (Let Your Games Begin is the prequel- it's not required reading, but you should check it out if you want a taste of how I write).

Not only am I thoroughly excited to get a change of scenery around here, but also a new crop of tributes… **Submit yours below, via PM only.** If you review with the tribute form filled out, I will gleefully ignore your request and move on to tributes who have enough survival instinct to maybe actually make it to the arena. On the other hand, please do **review with a reservation** of your tributes spot; "Name, District, Age." "Jane Doe, District 5, Age 12." Which means that before you do anything, sift through the reviews and make sure that your gender/District combo is not already taken. The catch with this little review reservation thing is that you have 24 hours to PM me after you've reserved a spot, or else that gender/District combo will be back up for grabs.

But you should know a few things. Firstly, this is not your typical SYOT. I will not be rummaging together twenty-four Mary and Gary Sues to thrust into hundred-word perspectives laced with lines such as "and then my foot got cut off and I died." Yuck. Instead, I will continue in the style of the prequel to this Fic, Let Your Games Begin, and **only accept 10 tributes**. The rest will be created by my own twisted little imagination. This guideline, however, does not immediately get your tribute to the Final Ten. Keep that in mind.

Also, this is **not** first come, first-served. I will pick ten tributes that I like and will enjoy writing—which equals no Mary Sues or wanna-be Mary Sues ("But she's really poor, so that makes her unique, right?"). If you suspect Suedom, turn back and start all over. These need to be people—real people. Not skinny, pretty girls who don't think they're pretty but are super athletic and just happen to know how to use a sword even though they're from District Six and the submitter doesn't know or care what District Six actually does. Districts shape tributes. Period. This is Panem, everyone, and someone's District is everything they've ever known in life. Let it show in their character. Remember when you're filling out the template that you're basically giving me a summary of an entire person—don't be afraid to give long answers or descriptions. Send it in two PM's if you have to.

I don't think I'll even get tangled up in points or sponsoring this time around, but I always love to hear my readers' opinions on who should win and why once everyone has a taste of the arena.

To my LYGB readers who already know the arena if they have sharp eyes and read my A/N: Shhh. Don't yell it from the rooftops. And I would love it if you at least pretend to be surprised when it's "revealed"… play along. (Don't bother going back now, I've taken it down.) Also for my LYGB readers/submitters, please don't re-enter the same tribute here as you did there. I loved all your tributes, but like I said, I need a change of scenery. You're welcome to come up with someone new for me, though. Just remember that just because you got a tribute into LYGB, doesn't necessarily mean I'll pick your tribute here.

I know it's long, but I figure you writing me a character is a good trade for me writing you a story.

Without further ado, here's the tribute template: (don't bother PMing me my footnotes… just make sure you read them before not copying them into a PM)

Name:

District:

Age:

Physical Appearance:

Personality:

Talents:

Weaknesses:

Fears:

Family/History:

Friends:

Day to day life:

Chosen or (oh dear) Volunteered:

If volunteered, why:*

Token:

Habits:

Attitude toward alliances:**

Favorite fruit:

Quote:***

First thought after being reaped (or volunteering, I guess):

*And please don't just say "because he's a Career"… explain what they think they're getting out of this exactly. Glory, perhaps. Fame, maybe. But what would that sort of thing mean to them specifically? Also, I beg you not to say that they volunteered for a sibling unless you have a reason so fabulous it will bring tears to my eyes and erase all doubt of your tribute's originality.

**Notice how I don't ask if they're open to romance. Why? Because I'm the author and your tribute will be open to romance if I want them to and feel it fits, or (more likely) won't randomly fall in love in the arena. Like I said, not your typical SYOT. This is the arena, folks, not a singles hook-up.

***I beg you to give me a quote. Don't be that lame person who says "I can't think of anything to put here..." or even worse, "idk." Give me a slice of their personality through a tiny snippet of dialogue.


	2. Updates

Updates:

Thanks for everyone who has submitted a tribute- keep them coming! Just know that I have five tribbies (as I call tributes, you'll soon learn) that I really like and have locked and loaded: **The girl from District One, the girl from District Seven, the guy from District Five, the guy from District Eight, and the guy from District 10.** These District/gender combinations can be safely considered taken, but don't be hesitant to submit any other combos. In case you want to be completely void of any competition and are too lazy to check the reviews, I have received submissions for: the girl from District Two, the girl from District Five, the girl from District Eight, the girl from District Ten, and the guy from District Twelve. **If you have submitted one of these, they still have a chance of getting in.** They just didn't quite make the first cut. Also, if you haven't submitted anyone yet, one of the combinations I just listed could still be your tribbie if I like them more. I would like to work with the best characters I can get my hands on here.

One thing I forgot to mention in the initial tribute call was that I will be taking five guys and five girls; and considering the fact that FanFiction is at least 90% female (see, Tongue of Lies? You get your own 10%) your male tribute submission has a greater chance of being chosen than your female. I love the girl power, but I've received at least twice as many chicks as dudes and some testosterone never hurt anybody. Metaphorically speaking.

**Last minute tips before you're off to create me a kick-ass tribute:**  
>Think outside the box. Get creative, come up with someone who can be realistic, unique, and interesting at the same time. Especially your girls! Really, there are females in this world who are not 17 or 18, who don't happen to be super pretty, who don't know how to use weapons and who have parents. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. Also, quirky=good. Freaky=okay in the right context. Downright special=difficult to work with sometimes. When they get too weird, you loose your ability to relate, and end up observing them from the outside like a creature in a zoo. Not so great for a story.<br>Your descriptions of this living, breathing person should not be a list of adjectives. These lists are boring, generic, dull, lame, pathetic, and they show how you are lacking in inspiration, energy, enthusiasm, or any shred of writing skill.

Have fun and I can't wait to get this snowball rolling.

**It's your turn. Good luck.  
><strong>**Topsy**

P.S. For my LYGB readers: like my new closing statement? Not as generic as my last one ("And may the odds be _ever_ in your favor"), but not as smooth either. Ah well.


	3. Sneak Peak

**I'm really loving the tributes that are rolling in- thanks to everyone who's submitted one. I now have seven characters decided on; the girl from District Six has been taken, as has the guy from District Seven. I still need one more guy and two more girls. Check over the lists in the previous post to see which spots are open; I'm cutting off entries tonight at midnight, at which time I'll pick the rest of the lot from tributes already submitted.**  
><strong>Also, if you're off to submit me a tribute, please put your tribute's name as the Subject of the PM.<strong>

**All your entries got me excited, so last night I whipped up a little sneak-peak for you guys. It's not beta-proofed, and a few hundred words shorter than the actual chapters will be, but I thought you'd appreciate a little snippet of how I do things. Which brings me to my next point/warning: If there was a rating on FF that was "Mostly T, but dabbles in M a lot" this Fic would be categorized as such. I plan on it being a bit more intense and mature than LYGB was; I would consider this Sneak Peak to be pushing T. It includes pretty graphic cutting and some offensive language; be warned before you dive in.**

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><p>The handle of the slim kitchen knife stuck to my clammy palm as I twisted my wrist to better expose the porcelain skin to the light of the bare bulb before me. The house was silent beyond the thin door of my closet, but the tiny space I was crammed into was filled with my noisy breaths. Winter coats swathed in night brushed my shoulder and too-small shoes cluttered my feet, but I sat solidly on the upturned bucket and continued my fragile work with only my pounding pulse and cloudy brain as company.<p>

_Tomorrow is reaping day_, my mind worried as I guided the blade across my own frail skin, intrigued instantly by how easily it sliced. _Tomorrow I could get out of here_.

_Don't be stupid_, another part of my brain argued back. The blood that oozed from the corner of my cuts gleamed black in the weak light. _It's fine here. Hacking at trees all day is fine. Secure. You're just whining._

A salty tear slid off my check and onto my upturned arm; the salt slid into the fresh wounds and instantly stung in complaint. I ignored the sudden sting and wiped the gathered bits of skin off my blade and onto the thigh of my jeans before lining up the knife to create a ninety-degree angle to my previous line. My entire arm burned as if I were holding it over an open flame, but that constant pain numbed out the slice of the precious instrument well. Even as I watched with shaky breath, the once-white skin around the incisions blushed and puckered. I paused my work on the second line to go back over the first.

The thing about cutting is that it's always the worst at the very beginning. It takes about ten minutes of repetition over the same area to rash it up enough to be sliced into; that's about how long it takes the pain to really register and get up to speed. Once you have those first few cuts in, though, you can hardly feel the rest.

_I could be on a train out of here tomorrow. Out._

But the best part is the adrenaline. There's something about making myself bleed that gets me high like nothing else. My hand shook slightly as I finished the second cut and returned to the first to bring out a third, smaller line. The many layers of gently raised white scars were the toughest to get through, causing my blade to catch and then speed on deeper than I'd intended, but I was too far gone to really notice too much that night.

_It's safe here. I have my friends, and my job, and my education- I have a future in Seven._

_Yeah? With who, exactly?_

My eyes continued to water more steadily as the pain was fully triggered; a clear bloody F glared back at me from my pink and tormented skin. Especially while holding it like I was, by my bare chest, it was easy to see the abuse I'd put this arm in particular through. It was hard to pick out a bit of skin that didn't bare the brutal white lines of cuts long past, or ragged red ones from episodes not so long ago.

A nicely diagonal line emerged right next to the completed letter, and my mind spun even higher.

_This is bad. I should stop._

_This feels amazing._

I feared for one fleeting second that my pounding heart would give me away; the walls of our ancient house were thin and anything but soundproof. On the other hand, my father slept like a rock and was unlikely to be awoken by the entire forest crashing down at once. The thought did little to sooth my dizzy worries.

As a bottomless triangle bloomed on my wrist, I tried once again to wrangle my giddy thoughts. _I could win that thing_, some small part of my brain intoned, completely high off the adrenaline coursing through my system.

_I would more likely die._

_Would that really be such a bad way to go?_

_I'm not suicidal._

But even as the fleeting thought crossed my mind I knew it wasn't completely true. No, I didn't want to kill myself, but there were certainly moments when I wondered at how much easier death sounded. And yes, I had considered the idea of taking my own life more than once, but the plans I devised never lasted for more than an hour of tedious work in the forest and were easily banished by an afternoon in town with the girls.

But how many other kids in Seven were huddled in their closet at midnight, shirtless and cutting their worries away? Not many, I'd be willing to bet.

Dad won't ever respect me.

But he would if I was a Victor.

Would he if I was dead? Would he regret not loving his only son? Or would he be happy to see me go? Glad to finally be rid of me, his embarrassment?

The horizontal line of my A was weak; I leaked all my frustration with my ever-unchanging father into my effort to make it more prominent, while keeping a watch on the important veins and reminding my hand not to go too deep.

My father was a model citizen in Seven; he could take down an oak in fifteen swings, he could haul his own weight, provide for his children; he was friendly to his neighbors and always held the door for a lady. He was everything a good man should be. Which is probably why he nurses such an unwavering disgust for guys like me. As I deliberately made the curve of a G into six straight adjacent lines, I bitterly considered the idea that he would be much more okay with the cutting I'd adopted a year and a half ago than the orientation I'd had all my life.

A cool draft swept up from under the door and raised goose bumps over my bare skin, but my high was wearing off and I was almost done with what I'd been needing to do all day.

_I'll show him_, I decided as a fresh shock of metallic pain seeped through my arm. _I'll show him how brave a guy like me can be. I'll show him that I have the guts he's always thought I was born without. I'll be the man he wishes he'd been._

The three-letter slang was now obvious on my arm. The burning pain that always lingered for an hour or so afterward was still blazing strong, but not completely from the cuts themselves. This particular word wasn't uncommon off my own father's buddies lips when they thought I wasn't around, to refer to good ol' Jim's odd son; it was my father's favorite excuse for my lack of participation in the macho activities the other guys thrilled in. It was his reason that I'd rather spend a day in the Square with the girls than rolling in the mud and fighting for a ball. And it was his go-to explanation for why we were never seen together.

The cuts stared back at me as they shed their last few drops of blood.

FAG.

Cedar would be pissed. That much was certain- she never approved of my midnight episodes. Not that the others did, it's just Cedar's motherly nature that always shines through whenever something like this comes up. She's the one who's been trying to hook me up with a mind doctor for months now, stubbornly unchanging even under my frail lies of, "No, really, I'm okay now," and "I don't need help. I'm fine." Even on my brightest days, her knowing gaze is enough to raise the pit of guilt permanently lodged in my gut.

The cliche red plaid shirts that were Capitol-issued to every lumberjack in Seven had long sleeves, which meant hours of uncomfortable chaffing but protection from the worried gazes of my Unit. Sappling and Rhus might not even notice anything wrong; they were great girls, but they just couldn't honestly relate to my situation and had a quiet tendency to assume everything was alright rather than question my health. I had hopes that those two and Cedar would be too preoccupied tomorrow with the reaping to really pry... And they'd be off in the girl's section, anyway, so I'd have the whole Square to hide behind.

My worries didn't really extend to the other Jack in my Unit; Dog was one of those wonderfully oblivious hunks of muscle who spent more time spacing out than tuning in to my and the girl's conversations up and down tree trunks. It wasn't easy, having a talk with someone seventy or eighty feet above the ground, but anyone caught standing around and chatting while on working hours was subject to the removal of a finger or toe. So while the three girls shimmy up and down the tree trunks, snapping off valuable kindling and stowing it in the baskets tied to their backs before the tree comes down and smashes half its branches, we shout to one another. The other Units around us are used to it by now; it's been a long while since anyone has shouted at us.

I grabbed the sleeve of a nearby shirt to gently swipe the escaping blood from my cuts as my mind came slowly back down to the moment. And the reaping.

_Volunteer_, the lower part of my mind urged.

_Don't_, another piece cut back.

_I could be doing some wimpy kid a favor- better me than some harmless twelve-year-old._

_I could die!_

_But Dad would see me. Actually see _me_ and what I can do._

_They're sick and twisted, the Games._

_And I'm not?_

I stood slowly from my bucket, the shift of my position sending a fresh wave of blood pumping down my arm.

_Maybe the Capitol would like a gay kid in the arena. Maybe they would be glad for diversity. Maybe I'd get sponsors simply because I'm not like everyone else._

_Or maybe they would be just as disgusted as every good man in Seven is._

My closet door whined airily as I pushed it open and yanked on the chord to turn off the bare light bulb. Another cool breeze swept in through my open window, chilling the sweat on the back of my neck and palms as I crossed my small bedroom to the covers-tangled bed. I slid my dirty knife underneath the tattered mattress before snatching up the dull plaid shirt from the snarl of blankets. The fabric was rough even against my heavily calloused hands. A trickle of blood stained it.

_I'm out of here tomorrow._

With a morose glance around my moonlit room, the decision really sunk in. I'm not coming back to this creaky old house. I'm not sleeping in this lumpy bed ever again. I'm not huddling in that closet to cut anymore.

My Unit wouldn't like it, but there are plenty of able-bodied young men in Seven; it will be easy for them to replace me. They might even cry when they come to say goodbye in the Justice Building. Not Dog, though... Dog will just stand stonily in the background and offer his shoulder for Rhus to weep into. Like a good Seven man.

I never really liked Dog.

I flopped down on the thin mattress, my spine screaming in protest against the hard wooden bed frame but my mind as twined in its thoughts as my hands in the shirt. I was decided.

Reaping day would take good ol' Jim's fag of a son off on a train to his certain death.

And that son was ready to go.

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><p><strong>Birch will be one of the ten tributes, in case you were wondering. I'm excited about this one.<br>****Drop a review, or submit a tribute in case you missed the last three chapters and still haven't.**

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy <strong>


	4. Worst Day Ever

**Still with us? Excellent.**  
><strong>Rolling with the fact that this isn't like most SYOTs, there's only one chapter of reapings. Just one. While this, in my opinion, makes for less redundant reading, it also means that some of your tributes get, say, a 6,000 word chapter, and others have maybe two sentences in here. Just know that each of your tributes will get at <em>least<em> two entire chapters from their perspective before they die. I promise.**

**On with the reapings!**

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><p>The stink of horse dung that clung to everything in Ten was weakest in the courtyard in front of the Justice Building—one of the very few positive attributes of the place. Not that it really would have bothered anyone if it had stuck around, but the simplest change in the air seemed to clean up the town just the slightest bit. As if Ten itself was prettied up for reaping day.<p>

My head throbbed with every thought I tried to shove through it as I concentrated on keeping myself vertical. A sea of kids surrounded me, each in their own clean little outfit that would look far more natural on a hanger than clinging awkwardly to the nervous crowd. Many still wore their farm boots; anyone who could afford nice shoes would be considered an outcast among this work-riddled group.

A hand clamped on my shoulder, lighting every one of my nerves off and making me jump about a foot. I instinctively whipped around with a threatening hand raised to face my confronter, but found myself letting out the breath I didn't realize I'd collected and letting my fist fall to my side.

"Geez, man, jumpy much?" the blond boy before me chortled with a tug on the collar of his fancy shirt.

"Sorry," I mumbled back, shoving my hands into the pockets of my slacks. Their lack of depth annoyed me.

"You look awful. Seriously. Did you sleep at all last night?"

"Two hours. Maybe."

He raised his eyebrows in an odd amusement, slyly pushing a smaller kid out of the way so he could draw up to my side. This new proximity provided me with a better view of the bags under his own eyes and a more personal experience with the distinct stench that radiated off him; Brad's own personal stink of BO, alcohol, and dead grass.

"Another one of your midnight _strolls_? Dude, you should've swung by my place. Bongo got a hold of some really good stuff from the market—Capitol knock-off, but we're not picky. It was _awesome_." His usually bright blue eyes were as fogged over as his brain and speech; I took a small step back and let him laugh airily.

"Don't look now, but your hangover's showing," I informed him blandly. A few of the kids in our general vicinity shot Brad half-curious, half-disgusted glances before shuffling off to their respective pens.

"Love how you think I care. But seriously, next time. You should be there."

I gave him a vague nod and pat on the shoulder as he turned to corner another guy from our little group of weirdos. Silently, I was relieved to see him go. Brad's awesome for a drinking party, put pretty much anywhere else he's just sort of embarrassing. And he smells gross.

The courtyard was filling quickly with a mix of different kids; I recognized many of them from school but the unfamiliar faces far outweighed the friendly ones. Ten's sheer size meant your closet neighbors were a good ten-minute walk away, with a twenty-minute _ride_ to school. The space bothered some people more than others; but then again, Ten bothered some people more than others.

The huge screen that was hitched up directly behind the wooden podium on the temporary stage flickered to life, catching the attention of many in the square and hurrying the kids to get to their correct pens. Not because it was _our_ reaping yet, but because we were about to embark on watching all nine Districts before us choose their victims.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot uneasily, seeking the tiniest bit of comfort from the forgiving soles of my boots. I shouldn't be nervous; that much was certain. There was no need to treat this reaping any differently than the past five ones. I guess I just didn't like the feel of this particular day, or the duty of watching two kids totter up to their slaughter without second guessing or protesting the demand to do so.

The screen was fully booted up now; the hum of the electricity it sucked up muffled the square with its invisible power. Large white words cut the black background; _The Reapings of the 263rd Hunger Games_. The letters fuzzed on the edges, cloaking themselves in mushy grey, before I harshly rubbed the exhaustion out of my gaze. Running on fumes usually worked fine for me; it must have been the added energy of stress and change that reaping day brought that had me wishing I'd skipped Pinto Loop and cut straight to Palomino the previous night…

The blackness of the screen faded and was promptly replaced by a sweeping shot of the much grander, cleaner square in District One. Hundreds of kids filled the square, in pens identical to the ones we were shepherded into now. The tallest kids stood closest to the stage—the 18's section—and the heads steadily tapered down from them, the smallest being those of the 12-year-olds lingering at the back by the adults and older kids. None of them seemed to notice the camera.

They didn't need a temporary stage to be built; their white marble Justice Building had steps that led up to a nice platform area in front of the columns and doors. They'd simply needed to pull on the podium and stick a microphone to it to be ready for reaping day. District Ten, on the other hand, had been swamped for the past two weeks with workers who had jobs paying so low that it was more beneficial to them to skip work and accept the small daily pay the mayor offered. School had been pestered with the constant sounds of construction all the way from the square as they'd worked nonstop to get a somewhat presentable platform stage up in time for this day.

And District One still looked a thousand times better than our grimy square did.

On screen, a tall, lean man with slicked-back white hair stood behind the podium, reading something extremely dull off a sheet in front of him. After every drawn-out sentence or so, he'd glance up seriously at his audience of youths, as though addressing them personally. It wasn't until his monotonous speech was almost over that I realized it was some kind of opener to the Games and the reapings. A smattering of distracted applause followed him.

The Capitol representative with the prime and much-coveted job of catering to District One stood from his clean white chair off to the left of the podium. His neon green hair was cut shaggy and long to stick up in all directions from his head and swept low to cover his eyes. I thought he looked sort of like an electrocuted bleached desert plant.

The 17 girl's section, connected with mine, washed over with whispers and shrill giggles. Which, of course, turned many of the heads in my own pen.

"_That's the one I was telling you about!_"

"_The new guy?_"

"_Yeah—and they just, like, instantly promoted him to One_."

"_He's cute!_"

"_I know, right? Like, punk-rocker-goth, kind of._"

"_Skater-punk-rocker-goth. That's so cool_."

I glanced at the green-headed freak on the screen and didn't even try to see the allure with the boring black outfit he sported, or overly confident swagger he employed as he moved to the reaping balls.

"The female tribute from District One is…"

The freak didn't have a Capitol accent. But he didn't speak like we did in Ten, either; his vowels were soft and long and he emphasized weird places in words as he spoke.

But the camera didn't even have time to find the girl whose name he did read before there was a shout of a volunteer from the girl's side of the square.

"Wonder Silver, everyone!" the green-haired representative called into the microphone when it was clear the volunteer was final.

Except he said it "Wondah Silvah." The girls to my right chattered again over the way he talked. I took a deep breath and scuffed at the packed down, dried-up mud beneath my feet. When I looked back up, the screen showed a close-up of a girl mounting the steps to stand by the podium. The girls echoed my vague thoughts.

"_No way is she actually from One_."

"_She doesn't look anything like One girls do!_"

"_Yeah—remember last year's?_"

"_Pearl was so pretty. And skinny… what is that freak doing?_"

The girl onstage wasn't skinny. Or particularly pretty; at least not in the plastic, generic way One girls always were. Instead of stick-thin arms and lean, slender legs, she sported toned and muscled limbs. Instead of a teensy waist she had broad, subtle curves that were obviously not from fat. The only trait that could have possibly connected her to the other chicks from One was the blond hair and fair green eyes. Certainly not the scar that skidded across her left cheek. Or the steely determination that contorted her features.

The applause was even less enthusiastic than it had been for the mayor. I could only imagine how this girl looked to such a vain District.

The boy's name was lost in the metallic silence pressing over District One.

District Two's weren't nearly as eventful, which is saying something. Both the boy and girl spots had to be fought over; the resulting pair were two that I couldn't say I'd like to have a swing with. The girl was willowy but frighteningly quick in her movements; the boy a carbon copy of last year's monster. I wondered vaguely how Two people bred their children to be such hulks… Maybe they fed them the gnarled metal that didn't go into constructing Peacekeeper weapons…

District Three was a sharp contrast to the first two. A new mayor stood behind a new podium and read the same words; another freaky Capitol-ite fished out two names; but there weren't any shouts of volunteers. Nothing but the sobs of the girl who had to be dragged, at last, to the podium. The boy looked like a stiff wind could have nauseated, flattened, or killed him. He quivered in a puddle of his own fear.

District Four brought another surprise; another non-stereotypical Career. The whispers of the girls next to me were fiercely reignited as the tiny girl onscreen beat out her female competitors and safely secured the spot as "female tribute representing District Four."

She was a 12-year-old. A tiny, twiggy 12-year-old. Brown ringlets danced around a round, rosy-cheeked and freckled face that currently hosted the most heart-warming smile. I watched my boots again with an uneasy stomach. Something was up with that child; at the very least she didn't belong in that District. Or volunteering for the Games.

"I present Taia Opal!" the squeaky Capitol representative said proudly to the wary crowd. I didn't like her either.

Especially shaking hands with the hunk of blond swimmer that was the male tribute, it was blaringly obvious how out of place this doll-like child was. If her District objected, it didn't do so verbally. Maybe they knew something about her that we didn't.

I glanced up at the giant clock mounted to the right of the screen; they'd fixed it just for this occasion (to look somewhat more classy to the rest of Panem) and it was almost strange to see the hands steadily working their way around its face. It used to just tell everyone it was 12:04 all the time; just another broken piece of a broken-down District. Thanks to the fact that it now was moving and had even been recently cleaned, the slipping away of time for the reapings was blaringly slow. It hadn't even been forty minutes yet.

The shift of my posture to check the clock alerted me to a face that didn't fit the sea of screen-turned heads. A warm breeze blew my bangs into my eyes just as the feeling of dread settled in my gut; by the time I'd uneasily shoved them out of my gaze, the kid's face was lost.

I didn't have any doubt about who it was. The recognition stirred up the usual unease that lived permanently in the back of my chest and shoved my mind into a quicker pattern of thought. _Just watch the screen_, I ordered myself harshly. _Nothing's wrong. Play it cool. Watch the screen_.

The girl from District Five (whose square was half the size of Ten's and much more colorful) had a similar reaction to the girl from Three; this one tried to run. The Peacekeepers, of course, didn't let that happen, but it took a good few minutes of awkward camera time for them to catch up with her.

Between the harmless sounds of the crowd around me, I heard movement. Someone approaching, someone in my pen trying to discreetly pick his way through. To me.

_The screen, the screen_, I pressed to myself, even as the first dose of adrenaline hit my system.

The Five girl was seated securely on the platform, flanked by two Peacekeepers. The image was almost funny; one little out-of-breath girl sitting stubbornly behind two full grown armed men. As if she were some crazy dangerous criminal.

The boy didn't put up any fight when his name was called, but rather floated up to the platform in a way that suggested his mind hadn't quite caught up to his body yet. The girls near to me rekindled their whispers; even that change in my surroundings made me jump the slightest bit and supplied me with another quick shot of adrenaline.

I garnered from their comments that they thought this Five guy was cute; though he seemed thoroughly unexceptional to me. Normal pale skin. Normal ruffled dark hair. Unremarkable height and thin build. The camera angle changed to a shot of his upper body and face as he shook hands with the still-quivering girl; he still didn't seem to completely register what he'd just been thrust into. I could understand the reaction—it seemed like a reasonable one in comparison to some of the other tributes'.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your District Five tributes: Lea Knickle and Jack Steele!" their representative trilled. District Five seemed to be compiled of good people; they applauded their sacrificed children heartily. Of course, it wasn't the same ground-shaking applause that the Careers usually got. Those cheerings were for a Victor who was about to make history. Five's warm acknowledgment was for two kids who they knew they'd never see again.

I couldn't ignore the subtle movement in the throng behind me now, and was glad for once that Ten was so big. The size of the District supplied it with lots of 17-year-old guys, which supplied me with as much cover as I could ask for in a packed square. I shifted forward, trying to act as if I couldn't see the screen and shuffled my way closer to the rope that acted as barrier for our age section. Maybe he could see me move. Maybe he couldn't.

_I'm not running away_, I tried to convince myself as the screen changed to a new podium and another mayor. _It's stupid to have this go down at the freakin' reapings_.

But I could hear his steady approach, and did my best to watch District Six's reapings without moving away from the sounds of movement too obviously.

"The female tribute from District Six is… Olivia Sanchez!"

A very scarce peppering of applause swept the crowd before they realized no one was moving toward the platform. The camera roamed over the crowd at large, seeking a reaction from one of the girls. There was none.

"Olivia? Olivia, dear, that's you!" the representative giggled uncertainly.

And finally someone from the crowd moved. The cameras instantly narrowed in on a girl in the 18's pen, who'd lurched backwards suddenly as if physically hit. The girls around her swished themselves together tighter so as to give the dark-haired girl a wide bubble of space. The selected girl twisted around uncertainly, terror coloring her gaze as her eyes roamed the girls around her. One of them stepped forward after a dry moment and said something to her that the cameras couldn't pick up. In response she shook her head frantically and glanced, panicky, up at the platform. Her friend gave her another push as the white-clad Peacekeepers moved from their positions at the edges of the steps and reached out to drag her along with him.

I was momentarily impressed with the amount of fight the older girl put up; it took the Peacekeepers multiple tries to get her by the podium. But that only occupied a small portion of my brain as the rest of it directed my shuffling toward the eastern corner of our pen, right by the rope that divided us from the girls.

The boy from District Six was as unremarkable as the Five boy had been, except this one didn't seem to qualify as "cute" to the girls I was now right next to. A few of them shot me dirty looks as I pressed myself closer to the rope. Maybe my pursuer would have the decency not to pick a fight in front of girls.

I doubted the thought as soon as it occurred to me.

Everything in District Seven's square was made of some kind of wood. Their podium was an unpolished wood that had streaks of red running through its grain; it clashed with the sickly white hands of their elderly mayor.

"What are you _doing_?" a feminine voice demanded at me in a harsh whisper. My head snapped around to face the girl who'd addressed me, and I was immediately relieved to see the blazing red hair and far too pretty face of Lane, Brad's ex-girlfriend. She frequented the drinking joints and parties as much as any of the guys, successfully earning herself reputation of being a complete slut but in reality (as far as I knew) was still a virgin.

_Well_, I reconsidered when faced with her feline-like features and athletic body, _maybe she and Brad really did—_

"Avoiding someone," I answered lowly.

She snorted. "Who could the mighty Arden possibly be avoiding?" Sarcasm dripped in sheets off her tone.

"Maks didn't like me beating up on his brother," I replied dryly.

She pressed her full lips together for a moment. "Right, that blond kid from Saturday? He wasn't that big. You totally had him."

"Well, his brother's bigger. And seriously pissed at me."

"So you're running away?"

"No—avoiding. At least until the reaping's over. C'mon, Lanie, you know it would be suicide to pick a fight in here."

She glanced around at the girls surrounding her and the guys surrounding me. Her long fingers toyed with the rope between us as she shrugged. "I'd actually think it'd be better."

"What are you talking about?" I snorted back, watching Seven's mayor finish up his speech.

"The Peacekeepers," she explained with syrupy slowness, "are way up there. And they're going to be busy with the poor saps from our reaping soon enough anyway. So, technically, to get to you, they'd have to plow through all the eighteen's and these damn ropes. Hell, they might not even notice you, not in this moshpit."

I glanced at her warily before skimming my gaze over the crowd of guys behind me. I could no longer detect his movement; which pressed my brain into another war over if I should be glad or worried. It quickly decided to be worried.

Lane read my expression easily. "You're so damn paranoid, you know that?"

"Could you shut up for just a second?" I snapped back.

On screen, the District Seven representative drew a name out of the first glass ball. "Ayla Hemmling!"

A stick of a girl separated herself from the 16's with a similar out-of-body air the Five boy had introduced. The shot tightened to watch her mount the wooden steps, better displaying how skinny she really was. Her already large brown eyes widened as the color steadily left her face. Her thin lips quivered with words only she could hear.

"She's tiny," Lane commented dryly. "I'd bet you anything she's a bloodbath."

The fact that I no longer knew where my attacker was didn't do anything for my already hyped-up nerves. "C'mon, the Seven kids always know their way around axes," I murmured back, mostly to keep her content. My airy answer didn't fool her.

"Paranoid," she huffed under her breath.

"Shut up," I huffed back.

The Capitol representative on the screen fished her scarlet hand around the second reaping ball. "And your male tribute from District Seven is… Oakly Root!"

Lane scoffed quietly at the strange name.

There was a disturbance in the crowd of District Seven as Oakly shouldered his way up to the steps of their platform. He had the forest-toughened appearance that every District Seven guy shared, with the usual broad shoulders and angular jaw that labeled each guy as a lumberjack. Their genetics matched the stereotypical ax-swinging manly man perfectly.

"I volunteer!"

The Capitol representative's sickly colorful face fell just as Oakly had taken his place next to the scrawny girl. The voice emitted from the crowd again. "I volunteer as tribute!"

The Oakly kid seemed relieved and grateful at once; the voice was clearly masculine.

"Well… well come on up, then!" the representative said shrilly into her microphone, giving the burly boy next to her a sturdy shove on the back. He gladly melted back into the crowd, quickly to be replaced by a very similar boy whose bronze hair caught the afternoon sun on his way up to the podium.

"Any who is our new tribute?" the Capitol-ite asked uncertainly, although she clearly approved of the well-built arms and shoulders of this new guy. She held the microphone up to him.

"Birch Sawson."

When the guy wasn't yelling, his voice rang much more feminine. If the District noticed, they didn't mind: their applause was warm enough.

"Your District Seven tributes, everyone! Ayla Hemmling and Birch Sawson!"

More applause from the wooden District.

"Dayum," Lane drawled, continuing to play with our rope divider. "I think I like District Seven."

I rolled my eyes, doing my best to appear at ease. "You've told us before."

"Not sober," she argued, watching the screen turn to District Eight.

This mayor talked quickly. I decided I liked him.

I cast yet another survey of the crowd over the kid's heads. There wasn't any shuffling or scooting around of the bodies, which meant either he'd stopped looking for me or lost me completely. Both good things, I tried to tell myself. The usual hot breeze of Ten wafted my hair around again, which only vaguely annoyed me and reminded me that I really needed to just hack the damn stuff off. It wasn't helpful in the saddle, or in school, and definitely not on the rare-ish occasion when I got tangled up in a fight. As in now.

The District Eight girl was boyish. At least that's what first hit me about her. Short hair, round face, almost curveless body… the only distinctly feminine trait was the way she approached the podium. Her movements flowed into one another in an odd, weightless way that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"Must be a dancer," Lane muttered dryly. "Nobody else moves like that."

"Dancer?"

"Don't be a dunce; it's an art form."

"Dancing's stupid. What does it achieve?" I asked bitterly.

"It's pretty, okay?" she snapped back.

I raised my eyebrows at her. "Lanie likes something pretty? What is this world coming to?"

She smacked my arm much harder than necessary; the sound hardly turned any heads. Which, to my mind, only confirmed what Lane had hypothesized earlier.

Good-naturedly shaking the blood back into my limb, I watched as Eight's Capitol-ite drew a slim slip out of the boy's bowl.

"Scrim Delaine!"

And he hustled himself right up to the podium with the boyish girl. His frame was long and lanky in comparison to hers, his slightly confused expression much more apparent than the vague discomfort that colored his partner's features. Neither looked ready to be thrown into an arena. Neither looked like they'd ever handled a weapon before. They both looked like running and hiding would be excellent assets.

"Your District Eight tributes, Melanie Samson and Scrim Delaine, everyone!"

My pointless, listing study on applause took note of the fact that District Eight didn't really applaud at all.

"Both bloodbaths," Lane commented casually. "Eights never know how to do anything."

"Hey, the engaged girl from last year made it to, like, the final five," I reminded her.

"Because she was engaged and got pity sponsors!"

"These two won't?"

She scrunched her nose at the screen. "Nah."

But just as I was about to question her thinking, a disturbance rippled through the guy's 17's section. My heart seized up a moment before I slid backward, trying to disappear in the throng of boys.

"Where are you going?" Lane hissed after me, but I just shook my head and did my best to get lost. My pulse was already pounding in my ears, blocking out the District Nine mayor making his speech. The guys I pushed past shot me odd looks, varying from curiosity to outright hostility. I just hoped I could keep moving enough to at least stall up this guy.

I reached the other side of our pen, the one that connected us with the 16 guy's, and paused, looking around.

I'd lost him. At least temporarily, he wasn't right on my trail where I'd sensed him for the past ten or so minutes. I breathed the tiniest sigh of relief.

The sigh didn't even make it all the way out before my head was being yanked back, arching my spine inward painfully and dragging my heels backwards.

I hardly had time to employ my best swear word before the brute was twisting his massive hand in my hair to turn me around to face him. He looked a lot like his brother, I noticed vaguely before realizing the fact that I was looking at a twin of the guy I'd recently gotten into a tiff with. He was still slightly bigger than the blond kid had been, with a face that was caught mid-smirk. I was _so_ screwed.

Knowing an inescapable situation when I saw one, I swung my already balled fist into the guy's stomach with as much power as I could get in my odd position. It took him by enough surprise that his grip on my hair loosened; I danced out of the way of his returning fist and delivered one of my best right hooks to his jaw.

The kids around us murmured amongst themselves and scooted back a little ways, happy to let us rip on each other but not wanting to get caught in the crossfire. However, the ring of space the allowed us would act as a spotlight to any, say, Peacekeepers watching the crowd. We needed to be more discreet.

Avoiding the powerful swing the guy took at me, I dove into the crowd, this time pulling and shoving kids out of my way. I knew he'd follow; they always follow. Sure enough, he plowed right on after me in the path I'd left through the boys.

But just as I was about to make a hairpin turn and try to loose him again, a vise-like grip clamped onto my ankle and I went falling, face-first, onto the cement-hard dirt. My nose didn't feel quite right, and the heat beneath it told me that my idiotic face plant had it bleeding. The kid's grip on my ankle moved up to my calf as my free leg kicked wildly in hopes of finding his face. I had no such luck.

With me pinned under one knee, the brutish kid smiled. His jaw was already swelling, I noticed with a small sense of pride. And that was just about when his fist came down on my face. My vision crackled and popped with the pain, but I heaved myself up on my elbows and swung my elbow (rather blindly) down in hopes of connecting with his stomach. By the groan he gave off, I guessed I'd hit his groin instead—frowned upon in hand-to-hand, but there wasn't any real rules here.

With a buck of my abdomen, he was thrown off just long enough for me to get to my feet. Another blow to his jaw. A knee in the stomach. I caught a nasty hit to the shoulder. He dodged my returning blow to his face. This somewhat familiar practice came back to my limbs as easily as it ever could. Usually it was a pride thing for me—people always give me a hard time about how damn protective I am of everyone I count in my circle of friends, but it's just the way I work. Anyone who picks on my buds has to deal with me, too.

Which would sound a hell of a lot more intimidating if I were, say, six-three and solid muscle. But I'm not. A decent five-eight with a body that refuses to rip up… but I don't think it matches me completely. Anybody who can shove two-ton cows around like I do deserves the respect and admiration that any super-ripped guy could get. So maybe, subconsciously, my fighting and drinking habits are just me trying to toughen myself up…

I always have the weirdest thoughts when high on adrenaline.

It wasn't until our situation had been completely reversed, and I now pinned this guy down while waling on his face, that I noticed that our own mayor had been speaking for a while. And that the kids around us were starting to part to make way for someone. Correction, two someones.

The kid reached up in my moment of distraction and yanked my hair down closer to his head, making it easier for him to roll us over and exchange blows while tangled in the horse-dung riddled dirt.

A new hand clamped onto my shirt and yanked me upward with a strength that outstripped the kid hell-bent on my life by miles. Almost in the same moment that I was lifted harshly upward, a white glove-covered hand smothered my mouth with a painful grip on my face. Another Peacekeeper was taking care of my attacker, but his hand only muffled the infuriated shouts the kid was trying to thrust at me violently. I took my capture in silence after the first few thrusts against the rock-hard Peacekeeper's chest.

"Stop struggling," he ordered.

My heart sank in the gust of air that escaped my nose, releasing every ounce of the adrenaline I'd been collecting. _Shit_.

Of all the Peacekeepers in Ten, it had to be my lovely father that dragged me out of my reaping pen while my body ached and nose bled freely. I'm going to be grounded forever, if not disowned. Assuming I survive the lashings that are guaranteed to follow such a public display.

A girl's name was called from the stage. I didn't recognize it, and was vaguely glad it wasn't Lane or any of my friends.

Once he realized I was vowed to silence, my father released his hold on my face and shoved me roughly through the crowd, aiming for the corner of the stage where the rest of the Peacekeepers were gathered. His coworker followed with the other kid.

The stares from before were nothing compared to these. Some kids laughed at the kid and I being paraded down the edge of the throng. Others just stared. Some whispered to their friends. Our fight had kindled a kind of excitement that's rare on reaping day. It didn't matter that all the girls in the crowd were now definitely safe for this year; this day in general brought everyone's spirits down.

"And our male tribute from District Ten is…"

I never liked our representative. He's one of those Capitol people that just set your teeth on edge with everything they do. The way he talked bothered me. The flips of his hands bothered me. The way he flourished the slip when he drew it from the ball bothered me.

But it was mostly what he read that I hated.

"Arden Wade!"

My father's shoving froze at once. In the next second, he sprung away from me with a firm shove to my back.

In that moment, with every kid in Ten's eyes on me, I mentally proclaimed that day to be the very worst ever. _Ever_.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry again if your tribute only got a teensy snippet. Or our first-person commentator was too busy getting beat up to notice their reaping (cough, Radioactive Raven, cough). They'll be the ones to shine brighter later.<strong>

**Our focus tribbies for these Games are:**  
>Wonder Silver, D1<br>Taia Opal, D4  
>Jack Steele, D5<br>Olivia Sanchez, D6  
>Ayla Hemmling, D7<br>Birch Sawson, D7  
>Melanie Samson, D8<br>Scrim Delaine, D8  
>Abel Miller, D9 (He exists. I promise.)<br>Arden Wade, D10

**I personally can't wait to get writing with this group. Feel free to drop a review (in fact, I would love it if you would), but please do keep it sort of PG. I don't mind swearing at all, but... well, you know who you are.**

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy<strong>


	5. Allies, Killers, and a Whole Lotta Bull

**See? I told you he existed.  
><strong>(Oh, and for LYGB readers: I can't remember if Suzu ever had a mentor, but I've just started fresh here.)

* * *

><p>"Now, keep an eye on <em>every<em> Career. I'm not joking with you here—no matter what they look like, they all come from the same place. Metaphorically speaking. These kids have been training their whole lives for this, so watch every one," Lyle pressed, his bulging eyes glued to the massive flat screen mounted on the wall of our train car. I gave a vague nod and hoped he would take it without requesting any more.

Lyle was, above anything else, _annoying_. He was twiggy and scrawny, with the sort of eyes like always look like they're open too wide, scarring on his chin and forehead from zits, and a lisp that sent saliva spraying everything in a three-foot range around his puffy mouth. Not the best mentor a guy could ask for, but he's the only one Nine's got. I mean, I think there used to be a girl, too, but she had like a nervous breakdown or something… a _fatally_ nervous breakdown. Which left us kids from Nine with this lisping wreck of a human being who'd won his Games by curling up in a ball in a cave and going without food or water for longer than should be humanly possible. The other tributes had just forgotten about him until there was only one left. She'd accidentally slipped down a mudslide and died in the bramble at the bottom of the hill. It'd taken the Game workers a good chunk of time to chase down Lyle and uncurl him from his cave just enough to get in the hovercraft. He hadn't spoken for three weeks afterwards.

What an inspiring tale.

But the best part about him was that he talked as though he'd been some fearless fighter in his Games. The advice he gave me and the girl whose name I didn't really care to remember was almost purely from the mouths of other Victors, or just complete bullshit.

"Now, now, see how he walks?" he piped up excitedly, scooting to the edge of his squashy armchair to point a shivering finger at the screen. We were currently on the reapings of District Four, and he was indicating the long, slender blond guy who was making his way to the podium. After two seconds of watching him, I got bored and reached for my weirdly orange soda.

"What's so special?" I drawled, the end of the sugar-coated straw caught between my teeth. I gnawed at the plastic.

"He walks like he knows how to swing a mace!" Lyle announced triumphantly, as if this were some great breakthrough he'd just experienced.

The younger girl on the other side of our brilliant mentor squinted uncertainly at the screen. "But his arms aren't very big…" she said softly.

"Yes, but it's all in the walk. Everybody knows that."

The only thing I could tell from the way this kid walked was that he thought he was all that plus a Capitol orange soda. He didn't stride, he _swaggered_.

"Now, the trick with maces, of course, is to grab the chain _as_ they swing it at you," Lyle continued seriously, watching the cocky Four guy.

"But wouldn't that just make the spiky end wrap around your hand and potentially break your wrist?" the girl asked softly.

"Are you the one who survived the arena, missy?" Lyle snapped back, spraying the kid in spit on '_mithy'. _

She recoiled back into her armchair.

"And that little girl is most likely a ruthless killer," he continued seriously, keeping his huge eyes on the dainty little girl on the stage.

I snorted. "Totally. She stands like she knows how to throw a trident," I drawled sarcastically.

Lyle shot me a dirty look. "_Actually_, sonny, she stands like she's good at climbing trees. And tearing out other tribute's hair."

One of my hands fluttered automatically to the top of my head, smoothing down the wisps of the wavy blond stuff that had become unsettled against the headrest of my chair. I shared a scowl with Lyle for a split second.

"What about him?" the girl piped up as the boy from District Five was reaped. Both my and Lyle's heads snapped back to the screen. I took another long drag of soda.

"Harmless," Lyle announced decidedly of the tall boy. The girl still watched him with an odd fascination.

"But he looks like he runs a lot," she commented softly. I eyed the kid warily. Her remark wasn't that off; he was in good enough shape. Probably an athlete. Or do they even play sports in Five?

"No, he's scrawny. Just look at his arms," Lyle scoffed, obviously just coming up with something to contradict the girl. She shrank back again.

The train car rattled, lending a gentle swish to my soda and making the younger girl's knuckles show white on the arms of her chair. There was a fly in the car; one of those really big fat ones that make a bunch of noise and bounce off stuff. I tried to zone it out and failed after a few moments.

"And there's another bloodbath," Lyle commented a few minutes later, having cooled down a bit. The girl from Six had to be dragged to the stage. She was pretty, I realized as they zoomed in on her horrified expression. Kind of short, but with a nice body and obviously some spunk in her.

"But," the girl started again, this time ignoring Lyle's look and plowing on, "she's eighteen. The eighteens almost always last a little longer than the bloodbath…" she trailed off, her voice shrinking again.

Lyle took a noisy, exasperated sigh of the stuffy air. "Don't generalize. Does she look like she could actually hurt anyone?"

_Yes_, I answered immediately in my thoughts. She was putting up an impressive fight with the Peacekeepers, considering they were both at least a head taller than her and probably twice her weight. Her fear was dangerous.

"Watch out for him," Lyle advised grimly of the quivering little boy on the stage next to her.

His bullshit was tiring.

We sat in relative silence for a few moments, the car filled with the muffled rattling of the train's progress toward the Capitol, the buzz of the fly, and the clinking of the ice cubes in my glass as I downed the soda. Lyle tapped his twiggy fingers on the arms of his chair, gaze still locked on the screen. His Adam's apple bobbed.

"Okay, okay, now look at that girl. She's one of those little firecrackers who'll put up a cute fight at the Cornucopia, but be taken down by someone who really knows what they're doing," he reasoned, pointing a veiny finger at the girl from Seven. My fellow tribute glanced up from her lap silently. Something clicked in her dark brown gaze; I hardly caught it but there was definitely something going on there.

"You like her," I teased lowly, which successfully sent her fingers twiddling and blood rushing to her face. "You want her as an ally, don't you? You think she looks _nice_?"

The girl tried to shake her head, but it wasn't at all convincing.

"Idn't dat cute…" I continued softly, relishing in the old comfort of making a smaller kid squirm. "Pipsqueak's got a friend."

"I just think she looks capable," she murmured almost inaudibly.

"I think she looks like her neck would snap real easy," I countered acidicly.

Lyle's hands fluttered in the air. "Just—just wait a moment. Abel, stop picking on her. Marie, that's a horrible choice of an ally. Now, now, look at him! _He_ looks like he could pull his own weight."

The District Seven guy had his shoulders shrunk forward and head hanging slightly. His obvious lack of an ego didn't hide the sculpted arms, though, or the broad, strong shoulders. I narrowed my eyes; something was off about this kid. I'd seen a lot of Seven tributes, and almost all the guys had this military-like assembly-line short hair, strong jaw, and very few words. It was as if the norm in Seven was to raise your son whacking at trees and saying nothing unless spoken to. But this guy—this one had volunteered, which was weird. Maybe he thought he had some sort of talent.

Like how he styled his red bangs. Or how his boots were all polished and taken care of.

"Homo," I declared to myself harshly.

"Excuse you? They don't _do_ that sort of thing in Seven," Lyle informed me, blowing off the idea as if I'd suggested he wear a duck on his head. "Try to get him as ally, though. Sevens are good wood-headed followers."

I would ally with him over my dead body. But I just gave another vague nod and pretended to be suddenly enthralled with the girl from Eight.

Who wasn't pretty. Not like the Six girl had been. This one looked sort of like a guy, weirdly enough—I wondered for a moment if we had two homos in these Games. The thought was only dismissed by her obviously feminine features and movements, and the clearly girly fear that was apparent on her face.

"She's probably excellent with jumping over rocks," Lyle declared, watching her smooth, graceful movements. "So if there are rocky mountains in the arena, she'll have a definite advantage."

Lyle's words, as he went on about how she might be part mountain-goat, just sort of faded into another annoying buzzing in the room. The fly still had my teeth on edge, and my mentor's babbling wasn't much better.

"You should ally with that one," he concluded to Pipsqueak, who nodded solemnly but obviously had no plans whatsoever of following the advice.

"He's probably great at snapping small children's necks," I said loudly as the guy from Eight mounted the stage. Lyle might have been talking; I couldn't tell nor did I care. My rash comment was stemmed off my general annoyance with my situation at the moment. I shot a dry smirk at the girl, who dropped her face to her hands again and did her best to ignore me.

"'Specially small, twiggy, girl-like tributes," I continued. "Probably grabs 'em by their ankles and hangs them upside down before beating them senseless with a log. Then he tears off their head," I prattled, thoroughly enjoying the dominance I had over the pathetic little girl.

"Abel, that's ridiculous," Lyle chastised me. "Why on earth would he hold them upside down? _Clearly_ he would attack from behind."

I shrugged and took another drag of soda, holding the swig in my mouth for a moment to feel the bubbles pop on my tongue. We _never_ got soda in Nine. I'd only had it once before, at a fancy party at the mayor's house when Dad had won some award at the factory. Employee of the decade or something.

The kid from Eight actually looked like he couldn't hurt anything or anyone. His expression wasn't horrified or even that frightened; only mildly confused as his long hands worried over one another. He even offered the boyish girl a small smile as they shook hands.

"Ruthless killer," I repeated. Lyle nodded.

Then it was Pipsqueak's reaping, and she covered her face in her hands. On screen, she was sobbing and shaking so badly she could hardly stand upright. I smirked, remembering how I'd counted her off as a bloodbath as she'd been called. I didn't recognize her at all from the crowd; then again, I was awful with faces and might have run into her someplace. A dark alley, maybe. The corner of the schoolyard, maybe.

Mine didn't go too bad. It took me a moment to actually get my limbs to move, but I looked decent. Pale and terror-struck, but decent in comparison to some of the others. Lyle fast-forwarded through the rest of District Nine's ceremony. He only pressed play in time for the boy from Ten to be called; he'd skipped the girl altogether.

"There's another ally," Lyle remarked as I flinched away from the fly's dive-bomb of my face. The kid's face was covered in blood, and he was flanked by Peacekeepers; probably some delinquent or psycho. Who picks fights at the freakin' _reapings_?

"See, he's a fighter. He knows his way around," Lyle said toughly.

"Or he's mentally unstable and would backstab me the moment we got to the arena."

Lyle shook his head thoroughly. "I know a good, decent, completely clean kid when I see one."

I was about to question if we were looking at the same blood-spattered teenager, but he took advantage of his new-found powers of the remote and skipped over to Eleven's ceremony.

"Bloodbaths, these two," he announced, letting the recording play when both of the kids were on the stage.

"But last year's Victor was from Eleven," the girl said uncertainly. In fact, he sat in a chair to the right of the podium. He must be seventeen now; his features were slightly more hardened than they had been the last time he'd been televised. His peach fuzz was growing out into a more mature stubble, but his reddish feathery hair was the same as ever. He looked almost as uncomfortable as the tributes, tapping his booted toe restlessly and running a glove-encased finger up and down the twine necklace he kept laced around his neck. That was his token, I think. He was the one who killed his own fake girlfriend. Then wanted his hands cut off.

I'd liked him.

"Everyone knows you never get two Victors from the same District in a row," Lyle reasoned, blowing off her comment airily. But he was watching Sparrow Kingston, too.

And he skipped Twelve altogether, declaring it to be a District full of homeless vermin. The girl to his left seemed offended, but kept her thoughts to herself and continued twiddling her fingers as our mentor got to his feet and cracked his back audibly. He took a few swats at the fly and yawned hugely, as if we'd just finished something hugely tiring.

"Let's get some chow," he said importantly. "You two need to get burlied up if you want to stand a chance in the arena!"

He tottered out of the room.

The girl stood and stretched silently, making her way for the narrow hallway Lyle had disappeared into. I slid defiantly between her and the doorway.

"Pipsqueak's got a crush on Five," I taunted lowly. She watched my shoes in silence, skinny little arms crossed over her completely flat chest. "And a little friend from the homo District."

"I think she has potential," she said shakily.

"Potential to be torn to shreds by that she-man from One, maybe," I responded, leering down at her.

"I think the girl from One is pretty," she piped with a tiny shred of confidence. I barked a laugh and took a step closer to the kid, making her retreat back a little.

"Yeah? You probably think you're pretty, too?"

She sniffed.

"Just keep listening to your mama, then. She probably also tells you you'll get a bod someday. Or ever have a boyfriend who isn't a sex-deprived homo looking for—"

And before I could flinch, one of her little hands shot up and struck my cheek. It didn't hurt that bad, just smarted like hell and would probably leave a mark in a day or so. I rubbed it testily.

In the next second, the car was enveloped in shadow. Lights flew by in streaks; we were in some sort of tunnel. The thin rays of illumination they provided highlighted the sparkling moisture on the little kid's face, and the clear wetness in her eyes.

"You're mean," was all she said.

"And you're dead."

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><p><strong>What a wonderful guy.<strong>

If you review, I'll be more inspired to keep updating. If you don't... I'll be sad.  
>Next chapter's at the Capitol- getting all prettied up for the exciting chapter after that, which is of course the chariot presentation.<p>

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy <strong>


	6. Troll Dolls

**Hello again. Glad you're still hanging in there with us.**  
><strong>Life has this way of <em>happening<em>, if you know what I mean? It's annoying how that gets in the way of writing FanFiction... point is, it's here now, and more is very soon to come.**  
><strong>We now visit Miss "Wondah Silvah."<strong>

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><p>My stylist jumped when she saw me. Didn't even try to be subtle about it; she <em>leaped<em> away. One of her long, bony hands flew to her chest and her face pulled a look it might have worn if she'd ever stepped in something foul.

I wasn't fazed. I get that a lot.

"My dear!" she breathed in a rush of horrified air. "Aren't you… unique."

I watched my hands against the background of the dark jeans I'd found in the closet on the train. Normal length fingers. Unremarkable palms. Only a few calluses, slightly lighter in my pinkish skin tone. I didn't think they were ugly. Then again, I didn't think _I_ was ugly, and I stood as the solitary representative on that opinion…

The waxy-skinned lady that was apparently my stylist started a slow pace around my squashy salon chair, reminding me randomly of a cat slowly stalking her prey. I tried to keep my eyes on my hands and my face unreadable.

"Well," she said testily, "you aren't completely unfortunate. I mean, you're not exactly the material I'm used to, but I'm flexible."

Something in my peripheral moved; my head snapped around at the same time my stylist's did to see the figure in the corner we'd both clearly forgotten about.

"I'll leave you to it, then?" Cassius Bianca asked lightly in his odd accent. His green hair glared garishly under the white lights of our small prep room, bringing out the neon color of his eyes. I would never understand Capitol fashions, but if anyone could pull them off, my escort could. Even while slightly resembling a troll doll, he made weaker girls swoon.

I could understand why; he held the mystic allure that set Capitol people apart from the Districts, and used it in combination with a handsome face, ideal body, and calm confidence that rolled off him in cool, smooth waves. Maybe it was because he's so pretty that the Game organizers promoted him straight to One when he'd interviewed for the job. Or maybe it was because he also happened to be intelligent and smooth-talking and extremely slick in stressful situations.

I don't know.

Cassius rubbed his pale, green-nailed hands together briefly.

"Out you get. We'll give you and the mentors notices when we're done. Out!" My stylist waved a floppy, almost flirtatious hand at my escort, hastening his smooth departure from the white-walled prison. He paused in the doorway to drop me a playful wink and make a show of pulling on the long leather coat hung over his arm. My stylist laughed (it wasn't funny at all) and shooed him some more, then he and his green head were gone.

"What a lovely man…" she muttered to herself, watching the empty doorway fondly. I cleared my throat after a moment, wishing she'd just get started so she could get finished.

Even as her beady gaze fell back on me, her expression was much softer than it had been when she'd freaked at my initial appearance. "Well," she said again, "well, now, we can work with this. We can…." she circled me again, "…make use of these curves. And this bulk," she prodded my arm with a manicured nail. It didn't give at all under her poke, and I wasn't at all embarrassed of the solid muscle that made up my limbs. I'd worked hard to get them that way.

"Where are those monkeys…?" my stylist mused to herself, before clicking over to the door and sticking her head in the hallway. "Armada! Crocia! Henly!"

I wondered for a moment at the tone she used; one I could only relate to someone calling his or her misbehaving pet. She ran a hand through her thin white-blond hair impatiently and yelled in the hallway again. This time, a young feminine voice yelled back, just as annoyed.

Three young women bustled into the room, each with their own air of arrogance and feigned superiority. Their hair was perfect, their clothes were eye-catching, their makeup flawless. And their skin was blue.

Upon getting a good glance at me, their reactions were similar to my stylist's initial shock.

I went back to watching my hands, running the dry things over one another and hardly hearing the almost inaudible hiss the action produced. My stylist bickered with and at them for a few minutes, completely ignoring my discomfort and existence. I employed my excellent ability to tune unimportant people out. With a silent breath, I sent my thoughts into the ever-changing arena that had taken up residence in the back of my head ever since I'd successfully volunteered. Today it was mountainous, with deadly winds that threatened to wipe any climbers off the sides of the cliffs and mutts vaguely resembling goats, but with huge horns ready to run you through with. I pictured permanently grey skies and razor-sharp boulders. Caves huddled in the sides of the rocks, each sheltering a tribute or two; some would collapse. I wondered how the hovercrafts would get the corpse if it were buried in rocks. Or would they even try?

Rocks would be excellent weapons; I wondered if they would have a similar center of gravity as the shots we practiced with at home. That would be convenient, but maybe the Gamemakers would know that… maybe they'd make them weigh too much to pick up and carry. No, that'd be too dangerous… too many kids would just get squished by the mega-heavy rocks, and not have to kill each other.

I was vaguely aware of many sets of fingers working around my head and over my skin; a wide array of discomfort that borderlined pain clouded up my head as I fought to keep my thoughts clear and precise, like I'd practiced.

FAWL. That was my own creation. Food, alliance, water, location. I figured those were the necessities I should keep close in the arena, no matter what it turns out to be. Food was obvious. Alliance not as much, but still needed; coming from a Career District, _not_ joining the pack would be far more destructive than leaping right into the mosh pit. Water should have been the first letter, as it is the most vital of the four. And location; somewhere somewhat safe, easy to protect, with access to supplies. A good home base might be hard to find in an arena lacking in vertical structures… what if they throw us into a completely flat desert?

They wouldn't do that, I reasoned with myself. Then we could all just run at each other and the whole thing would be over in a day. If that.

But that would be a day full of quality entertainment.

"Alright, Wonder, dear—stand up for me now." The oily voice of my stylist sliced my planning cleanly into a thousand different directions, and I grudgingly opened my eyes. The rectangular ceiling lights immediately bit into my gaze, and I rolled up quickly to get away from their piercing shine.

"Oh, she looks _so_ much better already," the shortest member of my prep team drawled, twirling a thick strand of bleached blond hair around a pampered finger. She and the rest of the group just eyed me judgmentally for the next few moments, clearly sizing me up and plotting their next overhaul. I slid off the chair and onto my feet almost silently.

"For the chariots," my stylist started grandly, "we're going to want you in something that will really draw the crowd's attention, no?"

I took a split second to process that mentally. Attention means bigger audience. Bigger audience means greater chance of viewers liking me. Viewers liking me means sponsors. And sponsors could be the difference between my life and my death in the arena.

I nodded woodenly, suddenly aware of how raw my skin felt all over my face and under the robe that I must have changed into at one point in the past hour or so. The strange Capitol peopled continued to leer at me until my stylist cut the heavy silence with a snap of her fingers.

"So we must do something that people will remember!"

I thought bitterly back to last year's chariot costumes from One, which had basically been carefully placed jewels. Which had worked for last year's girl, being so stereotypically skinny and pretty… her looks didn't do much for her after getting tangled up in that net… She didn't even think to bite at it or use the knife she always kept in her thigh concealer…

Stupid, stupid mistakes. All of them. District One should have had a Victor last year—if not the bow-smart, strategizing little guy than the blade-happy girl! Not some pretender from Eleven. So it would be up to me, really, to show all those money bags sponsors back home that it doesn't take a size zero figure or a face fit to stir jealousy in the guts of all other females, to get in and out of the arena alive. I would be living proof that maybe looks aren't everything. Maybe the ugly girl can be a hero, too.

My stylist and prep team were back to bickering, trying to decide what they could possibly do with me for the chariots. Whenever one of the preps would offer an idea, the stylist would shoot it down. Whenever the stylist offered an idea, all three of the preps would groan and whine.

"We want her to stay intimidating!" one of the preps protested.

"But we can't have a mannish girl parading around out there," my stylist shot back.

"Neither do we want to dress her up and make her pretty, just to release her into the arena and have her be the viscous killer that would have gained her so many sponsors earlier."

"_I_ want her to be pretty. She _needs_ to be pretty—pretty people are just likable! A good face can win anyone!"

"But what she can do is far more impressive than her… looks." The tallest prep glanced at me uncertainly. "If we present a real contestant, then the sponsors will immediately have their eye on her!"

My stylist sighed as if she were working with small children. "But the rest are simple-minded people, Henly. They will like the shiniest, most beautiful tribute. They won't be measuring them up as killers, or hunters, or strategists! They'll be looking at their faces, and their outfits, and their winning smile." She shot me a meaningful look. No way was I going to give her a _winning smile_. The Games aren't about _smiling_.

The quietest prep threw her hands in the air, clearly exasperated. "You know what? You're the best stylist in the Districts. You do what you think is best." And the other preps fell silent too.

To my surprise, my waxy-skinned stylist turned to me. Her lips were tight and hands were set on her pointy hips, but when she spoke it was dry and quiet.

"Congratulations. You're going to be pretty."

.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.

My District partner didn't jump; that was a good sign. Despite the heaviness that weighed down my face, and the dark ink that blurred the edges of my gaze, I felt… excited. Tingly. Not as nervous as I'd feared I'd be.

"You look… nice," he said awkwardly as we stood with our separate mentors in the hallway outside the elevator. The solid silver wall reflected our images back at us, wavy and stretched out.

I glanced at him. "So do you."

Both our tones were stiff; both our gazes completely shut off. I'd watched many, many Games over my life and the District partners who immediately warmed up to each other never, ever made it far. Their emotional attachments held them back. Or maybe it wasn't even the emotional piece of things; maybe it was the strange allegiance they felt inclined to nurse toward this person who they must know had to die. Whatever it was, it was a weakness, and not one I intended to allow to grip me.

So I watched my toes and tried to see them as my own. The white sparkly nail polish was a style that I'd seen on many girls around One, but the intricate weave and style of my natural leather sandal heels was like nothing I'd ever seen before. I found my shoes intriguing for the first time in my life—or maybe I was only so morbidly interested in them because I was so determined not to be interested in anything else.

"Are you ready?" he asked me. His voice reminded me of the stale wafers dished out at the gym back home.

I grunted a non-committal response. Ready for the chariots? Ready enough. Ready for the intense training I was about to throw my body into? I was prepared.

Ready for the Games?

Definitely.

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><p><strong>If you lovelike/are bored by/dislike/hate Wonder, let me know. In a review. I can't wait to get these Games going, and I'm always, always, always more motivated to write under the influence of reviews.**

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy <strong>


	7. A Token of Appreciation

**Onto the chariots! Huzzah!**

**I like this girl- another vanity issue, but a little different than Wonder.**

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><p>"Turn to the left. Hold still. The right. More. Hold still… Now look at me." My stylist drew his powdery soft brush away from my face and up by his shoulder, narrowing his bright blue eyes critically at his last-minute work. One of his sickly thin hands raised to rest just under my chin, guiding it up and to the side firmly so as to admire his finished piece thoroughly. I tapped on my last supply of patience and allowed my hands to curl into tense little fists at my sides, crinkling some of the fabric of my dress between my fingers.<p>

Without warning, he applied another air of powder between my eyes, making me flinch back and bring my hands to my already watering gaze.

"You're done," he informed me airily. "Now just don't make me look like shit out there, and we'll all be home free. Good? Good." He flounced off without another word, leaving me to rub irritably at my stinging eyes and wobbling back a few feet in hopes of finding something solid to lean against. I'd thought our chariot was right behind me… maybe three more steps…

My foundering hand hit something solid, and I clamped onto it automatically, scrubbing my eye with the heel of my other palm. What's _in_ that powder?

"Melanie? Are you okay?"

A hand, much larger than mine, wrapped itself carefully around my wrist and pried my hand gently off what I was clinging to. Wheeling around, I realized that it had been a guy's shoulder I'd grabbed. Not the chariot.

He kindly set my loose hand on the edge of the chariot car just behind him and stepped smoothly out from under my arm. I squinted at him, willing the sting to leave my still watering eyes.

"I'm fine," I informed him in a tone that I hoped was light. A small V (or something that looked very much like it through my squinted gaze) was forming between the guy's eyebrows. He was clearly concerned.

"I can get some water or something," he offered, glancing around over my head at the cavernous launch room we waited in. "But… maybe that would mess up your makeup…?"

I shook my head hurriedly, daring to open my eyes all the way. It stung like heck, but I just chomped down on the inside of my cheek and did my best to smile. "Thanks. But I'm really okay. Fluerant got some of that powder stuff in my eyes…"

He smiled a very tiny smile. "I inhaled some. I was sneezing for hours."

We laughed, and I realized how odd our situation was. Standing by the iron chariot waiting on the slot marked with a stenciled 8, in the midst of the last-minute madness of stylists, mentors, and tributes alike, with the announcements of the event coordinators crackling over the sound system in the cement warehouse… and here we were, just laughing. About makeup. Right before our first real step in the Games.

When his chuckles and my giggles died off, I found my gaze tracking back to my feet. He picked curiously at a scrap of fabric pinned to the shoulder of my gown.

"It's a very pretty dress," he commented lightly. "You really look like a girl tonight."

From anyone else, the comment would be hurtful, as it pressed right into my sorest spot—but my District partner, Scrim, was a strange boy. He didn't know what sarcasm was. He'd probably never told a lie in his life. And he had this habit of picking out your most self-conscious areas and commenting lightly on them.

I smiled. "Thanks. I feel girly." I gave my full, puffy skirt a gentle half-twirl, twisting my hips back and forth with my feet planted.

He settled easily back into a relative silence, content just to continue his attempt to smooth the stray scrap of fabric on my sleeve.

"Are you ready?" I asked, partially because I felt like it was a good thing to say and partially because I was curious. He shrugged and gave my sleeve one last pat.

"I think so. I mean, I've never done anything like this before, but we look good and it sounds exciting."

He was right on the looks part—our stylists may be insane, but they know what they're doing. Both of our outfits were compiled completely of random scraps of fabric, all pinned and sewn together in an effortlessly artful way. My skirt had about eight layers of puffy material beneath the outer-skirt, giving me a princess-y gown like feel. I'd never worn a dress so low-cut before, and the experience was both exciting and nerve-racking at the same time. What I'd said earlier was true; I did feel like a girl. For someone who lived her life in tank tops and cargo shorts, wearing this much mascara and padding in my bra was foreign. Looking pretty was something that I'd always figured would be constantly unattainable. Not that I didn't want it; I don't think any ugly girl could honestly say that she didn't _want_ to be pretty. I'd just accepted that I never would. And tried to move on in my life.

I gave my toes a nervous wiggle, partly to see if they still worked, and partly because I couldn't see them under my layers upon layers of skirt. Fleurant had put me in heels; another first for me. They were such works of art on their own that I almost felt bad wearing them under a dress too long for even my painted toes to stick out. Fleurant claims to have designed and crafted them himself; something that I had no trouble believing. His long, lean fingers would have worked well with the supple, antiqued leather of the many twisting and twirling straps. His delicacy with anything pretty would have assured the positive turnout. I almost wished that I had a pair like them back at home. But then the ache in my ankles reignited, and the thought was banished.

"Oh, look—we're starting," Scrim said suddenly, elbowing me gently to catch my flighty attention. The huge lights hanging far above the warehouse dimmed down to an orangish glow as the attention in the launch shifted subconsciously to the One's chariot. Both of their tributes looked great, as usual with the Ones; even the girl, who was somewhat less than the model-like beauty the District usually turned out, glowed in the diamond-studded chariot. Everyone knew that the One's stylists were the best in all of Panem, and this couple really displayed that. The girl's long blond hair was twisted artfully on top of her head, secured by pins that sparkled with countless precious jewels to match her pageant-like gown. A wide ribbon that I recognized as satin accented her waist and shrank it to the naked eye, and an extremely low-cut back satisfied the sex appeal piece that Ones always went for. The boy seemed to only be there to complement her; a large side accessory, some shirtless male eye-candy for the Capitol sponsors waiting eagerly to cheer them on as they rolled steadily out of the launch and into the spotlights.

I suddenly felt less pretty, and my eyes dropped to my own patchwork gown. It suddenly seemed quite colorless and dull to me… nobody would really notice us, when it was finally our turn…

A large hand wrapped itself gently around my shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze; I looked up to find Scrim sharing a supportive smile.

"They look really good," I commented dryly.

He shrugged. "Yeah, they do. Their stylists really did an excellent job this year. The girl doesn't look at all like a man."

It was an odd comment, but Scrim was an odd boy. I focused on the Twos as their huge black horses were led up to the starting position. The animals seemed antsy; they tossed their heads and danced around in their harnesses, sleek tails swishing in anxiety as their wide eyes took in the Capitol scene beyond. I felt kind of sorry for them.

The Two's chariot was weathered iron this year; no decorations or otherwise visually interesting pieces to it. Their outfits were the same way; the girl in a solid black dress that was tight enough to count her ribs, cropping off well above her knees in a style that made me wonder how her butt didn't fall out for the world to see. Dark makeup on both of them; they certainly _looked_ intimidating enough to fit their District's stereotype. A black leather jacket and combat boots accented the boy's similarly all-black get-up. The most eye-catching piece of the entire chariot was the bloodlust in both of their eyes and the silver rings and bars that pierced the boy's eyebrows, lips and ears. I wondered momentarily if they would let him into the arena with the jewelry. They followed the Ones into the light.

The noise level in the launch was considerably lower as the ten remaining chariots adjusted to be ready for their turn. Our mentor motioned animatedly for us to get into the cart; Scrim pulled himself up easily and offered a hand to assist me. Our shoulders brushed as we stood side-by-side in the small vehicle, and I clamped a hand down hard on the edge to keep myself steady as our roan horses edged forward.

The Threes weren't as beautiful or mysterious as the first two chariots had been. They were painted grey from head to foot (I couldn't quite figure out why) and sported metallic silver jumpsuits from their elbows to their knees. The overall effect was less than attractive.

As the Threes made their exit, I remembered back to last year, on this exact day, and how I'd been seated on our beat-up old couch in front of the boxy television with my family. We used to pick our favorite chariots throughout the entire display; usually the Ones or Fours got the most votes purely because they were so pretty. Last year had been different; the Ones had indeed been noteworthy but the Fours suffered from a new stylist with a taste for shrimp. Their outfits had made them into giant replicas of the beady-eyed snack, complete with miniature lights to accent their fleshy pinkness. My votes had gone to Six and Eleven.

Four seemed to have seen sense and fired the old stylists; their turnout this year definitely went for a more attractive edge. They played up the girl's youth to the extreme, with a childish blue dress and big periwinkle bow tying up her curls. Her makeup was extremely subtle, only bringing more girlish pink color to her cheeks and glimmer to her lips. When we'd re-watched the reapings, I'd been confused by this certain volunteer. Her tiny frame, her age, her seemingly harmless way of carrying herself made me worry what kinds of children Four had been working on for the last year. I wasn't naïve enough to completely buy the little girl look, but it posed an extremely convincing angle to the potential sponsors that made up most of the crowd.

It was odd how the guy clashed almost completely with his partner. Every bit as young as the stylists had tried to make her seem, he was matured and capable-looking. Their only tie was the similar shades of blue that laced through their clothing, although the stylists had taken advantage of this guy's lean, athletic, and admittedly attractive body by leaving most of it bare. Swirling black tattoos that I interpreted as artistic waves curled across his lean back and leaked halfway across his chest. A bold yet tasteful 4 blazed on his right upper arm.

I blushed and directed my gaze to my skirt as I realized how low slung his shining blue slacks were. It was strange, watching such a naked male and not being chastised for it. I still felt embarrassed; Eight was a fairly conservative District. Never would a man leave his house without a shirt. And girls really weren't supposed to ogle at beautiful people.

_I'm not in Eight_, I reminded myself as the brilliant white mares drew the Fours into the swirling spotlights. The Capitol crowd's noise swelled. _And I'm about to charge into the Games. I should be allowed to appreciate what I want to appreciate._

I glanced up at Scrim, whose gaze didn't focus on anything specific but instead slid out of focus somewhere over the Seven's heads. After a moment he caught me looking and snapped back into attention. "Only four to go!" he rallied half-heartedly.

The Fives weren't as attention-worthy. They sported tight black tee shirts and shorts (the girl's much, much shorter than the guy's) that clashed with their pale skin drastically. A large symbol that I didn't recognize, sort of like a horizontal figure 8, was cut out of the backs of their shirts. Their skin filled in the odd marking. But what really caught my attention with this chariot was the clash of attitudes between the tributes. The girl seemed extremely uncomfortable in her own skin, and she stood as far away as possible from the guy, clinging to the side of the chariot for dear life with all the color completely vacant from her face. The guy, on the other hand, put on a very convincing façade of confidence and ease with the situation, waving at the crowd as they rolled out and even pumping his fist as they gained more enthusiasm.

I was suddenly keenly aware of how close to the exit our own chariot was getting. Our horses seemed to feel it, too, and they spawned off of our anxiety easily. The two Avox stable hands struggled with the long, detachable reins on their ornate bits, yanking on their heads in feeble attempts to regain their attention and control. It didn't work.

The Sixes were wrapped in white strips of fabric; they sort of looked like half-unwound mummies. Their hair was teased up into an electrocuted sort of disarray, and they sported black boots that hugged their calves and conformed easily to their feet. I found it strange that the stylists had decided to put both the guy and the girl in almost the exact same outfit. The only differences were the girl's obvious curves and drastically prettier face; the would-be clones hardly turned any of the colorful Capitol faces as they made their rather uneventful and slightly sloppy exit.

There was now only one chariot between us and the giant open exit. I could feel the warm summer breeze blow lazily in through the huge doors, its scent of pure humanity mingling with the horse smells and stress of the launch. The combination turned my stomach, and I clung a little tighter to the edge of our cart.

Scrim seemed to have noticed my white knuckles. He gave my elbow a squeeze and shared another brief smile. The gesture hardly extended to his eyes, which were still rather frazzled with the whole situation, but it was nice nonetheless. I did my best to smile back.

The Sevens both sported the red plaid flannel shirts that were so easily associated with the District. Of course, their stylists seemed to have fed the old garments through a shredder before presenting them, but they were still recognizable. The girl only wore the oversized button-down; its sleeves were hacked off and it fell unbuttoned until far too low on her chest. A wide leather belt that was probably supposed to distinguish her waist was cinched somewhere around her middle, but the young girl's complete lack of curves made it look something like a costume on a rack. The shirt alone came down to the skinny girl's knees.

She was far outclassed in the exact same shirt by her District partner; this was the guy who had volunteered—one I'd made a mental note of when reviewing the reapings. The thing was, the more I looked at him, the less of a threat he seemed. His nervous movements in the stalling chariot were soft and silent, and I recognized the certain awareness he held of his hands and muscular limbs from the other girls in my dance class. It was a bizarre connection, seeing as he was a six-foot-tall, completely ripped lumberjack and the dancers in Eight probably didn't push one-ten soaking wet; but it was definitely there. My brain somehow couldn't picture this guy chucking an ax into the back of some kid's head.

And then all of a sudden the shining bays towing the Sevens were off into the lights, and it was our chariot rolling up into the starting slot. Fleurant materialized by the side of our still cold cart, almost pressed up against Stanley, our only mentor.

The middle-aged man took a breath of the somewhat stuffy night air and grinned up at us. Our mentor was nothing if not good intentioned, though I'd wished more than once as we'd worked together that he didn't have short-term memory loss. It made taking his advice less than, well, advisable.

"You two look wonderful," he said in his deep voice. His smile reminded me sharply of my grandfather, who I'd only gotten to spend time with when I was very small and even then only around Christmas. The memories were somehow still distinct to me, tucked away in an almost intangible part of my mind.

"Thanks," I sputtered back after finding my voice.

"You guys should be friends," Stanley commented vaguely.

An odd moment pressed between us. My heart thudded almost painfully against my ribs.

"Yeah," said Scrim sportingly a few beats too late. "Yeah. Then we're already a team before we get to the arena." He paused for a moment, his honest eyes studying my face. "I'm sorry—I just sort of assumed you'd want to be my ally. How impolite of me." In one movement, he took my hand in both of his. "Melanie Samson," he said seriously, still eyeing my expression, "would you please be my ally in this year's Hunger Games?"

The red light mounted on the concrete wall behind him blinked. Once, twice…

I grinned. "Yes, Scrim Delaine, it would be my pleasure."

His tiny grin split into a full-blown one just as the Avox to my left started motioning our chariot forward. I half-turned to face forward, still gripping the side to keep myself vertical, when two long arms were suddenly wrapped tightly around my shoulders.

"Scrim!" I wheezed. The spotlights' heat fell onto my bare skin as I pried him off of me. He laughed.

"We're going to be awesome allies!" he proclaimed loudly as the crowd's shouts pummeled us from all sides. His arm hooked playfully around mine, letting me hold him steady to use his free hand to wave at the crowd.

I giggled in spite of myself. My palms were sweating themselves slick, and my heart hadn't slowed one bit, and my knees were shaking uncontrollably, but I actually kind of enjoyed the moment. Something about the spotlights, and my killer outfit, paired with the roar of a crowd of strangers and the lenses of cameras that would broadcast my image to every television in Panem just made this warm bubbling sensation sprout up in my chest. Before I realized it, I was waving, too, and playing silly mirror games with the tall boy next to me, and I could actually hear my name—mine!—being tossed around the crowd.

They'd bothered to look up the girl's name from Eight in their programs. Sure, they pronounced it wrong (a nasally sort of "Me-lanie" instead of "Mel-uny") but the sensation was the same.

And so I smiled, and I waved, and I made a complete spectacle of myself in those ten minutes from the doors of the launch to the entryway under the President's balcony.

It was wonderful.

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><p><strong>Please review. Please. I have the next chapter already half done... Training Center goodness.<strong>

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy<strong>


	8. Matches

**Hurray for quick(er) updates!  
>And for great betas- one of which I happen to have. This chapter and every chapter before and after it's legibility to unsuspecting readers like you are thanks to Writting2StayHalfSane. (She's also the one who would normally tell me that the previous sentence is awkward.)<strong>

**This chapter is brought to you today by the number 4, and a special little girl who hails from it.**

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><p>The lady standing on a box in the center of the gym had one nose hair much longer than the others. It quivered with every one of her breaths and had a kink partway down its length.<p>

I knew six ways to break a person's nose, and could probably get hers in less than a minute if I moved right now. I'd slip between my District partner's hip and the waist of the Two girl beside him, most likely brushing her thigh but that would be explainable considering she'd chosen to wear a skirt to our first day in the Training Center. The One boy in front of them stood with his shoulders slouched forward in complete lack of interest; they would work as hand holds to help launch myself off the ground. Using the momentum of his height plus my spring leap, I'd swing my legs around and probably clip her temple. Before she hit the ground, I would have landed on the edge of the box, heels hanging over the edge, and would bring my elbow upwards in a vertical movement to smash her hair-breeding snout into her skull. Forty seconds max. I'd be left with the One boy annoyed, the crowd panicky as they realized what happened, and the lady unconscious for a good three hours. Plus a pool of blood that would stain the pure white tiles that made up the gym's floor and might be inconvenient if the Peacekeepers came snooping.

I shifted my weight to my right foot as the completely untouched instructor concluded her speech and smiled at us, acid dripping slowly from the false grin. The kids around me were falling out of the tight group we'd been packed into, sifting through the knot of humanity to try and connect with potential and established allies. I made myself small as the group of taller kids melted away around me; the other tributes from the Career Districts were left standing their ground around the vacant speech box.

The girl from Two tossed her long black ponytail impatiently over a bony shoulder. "I'm Cadmium because my parents were factory brain-dead retards who really wanted a son. Call me Caddy and get your finger broken off. It's Mia," she snapped in the general direction of the One boy, who was slowly rolling his head around to audible snaps of his neck.

"Slink," he said lazily. For a moment I thought he'd called her an offensive name; then I realized that he'd just stated his.

The Two boy snorted and moved to lounge on the edge of the speech box. "Screwy nickname," he commented dryly.

"It's a kind of leather," the One replied tiredly, clearly exasperated with the other boy's lack of luxury material knowledge. "Made from the skin of unborn calves." He shot me a rather pointed look, and I crumpled my forehead slightly and tugged at the edges of my mouth. "And how should we address you, oh critical one?" he added, appraising the tan boy.

"Router," the pierced Two answered lightly, nibbling absentmindedly on the end of one of the small silver bars through the edge of his lower lip. The tiny noise of teeth connecting with metal sent metallic waves of irritated energy down my spine. I did my best to stay wide-eyed and kept my mouth clamped shut.

He raised his metal-riddled eyebrows at the thicker blond girl who lingered near the back of the small cluster, on the other side of the box.

"Wonder," she piped up boldly, eliciting snarky chuckles from Router and Mia.

"Well, it's pleasure to be in the presence of a real live Wonder," my District partner said smoothly, offering his water-toughed hand to her. The movement pressed the sleeve of his white tee shirt against his upper arm; the 4 printed there showed easily through the thin material.

She watched his outstretched gesture critically before folding her sturdy arms defiantly over her chest. He took the message clearly, her rejection sliding off of his cool shell like a drop of oil.

He was one that I definitely looked forward to seeing break.

"It's Sebastian, in case you were wondering what to draw hearts around in your diary," he added slickly, meeting her piercing glare fearlessly as he accepted a back-handed high five from Slink.

"Who's the little girl?" she snapped bluntly, jerking her chin in my general direction. I suddenly found all five pairs of eyes on me.

I cleared my throat in what they would probably interpret as a nervous action. "I'm Taia," I announced quietly, lifting my chin slightly.

They all just watched me in silence for a few moments. Router's snort broke the awkward silence. "All right, then, little girl—welcome to the alliance. What are you, like ten?"

"Twelve." _Be nervous_, I reminded myself sharply. _Be quiet. Be innocent. Be unexceptional_.

"And can you _do_ anything with that tiny little self of yours?"

"Well," I started, my voice shaking over the single word. I cleared my throat again. "I can swim."

I could stay under water for twelve minutes and thirteen seconds. I could move through it without rippling the surface. I could dive into it without making a splash. I could catch a fish with my bare hands. It wouldn't even know what hit it.

"She can _swim_," Slick repeated in sarcastic awe. "Signed and sealed. _Never_ met a Four who could do that."

"You've never met a Four _period_," Mia pointed out, whacking the back of his head. He took the hit good-naturedly, but I could spot the fire that was waiting to be ignited behind his placid grey gaze.

"And…" I paused, switching my gaze to the pipe-riddled ceiling as if racking my brain for any other lethal talent I could possibly come up with. "I can run. Pretty fast."

I could outrun every kid my age in Four, and probably most of the adults, too. I could do a mile in four minutes and nineteen seconds. I could run for hours on end. Then sleep for fifteen minutes and run again.

Wonder eyed me critically. Something about her gaze made me worry that she could actually see right through me. It was unlikely, and wouldn't matter at all in only a few days' time, but it still bugged me that my innocent front might not have every idiot in this alliance completely fooled.

"Have you handled any weapons?" she asked casually, not lifting her steely gaze from my face.

I could hit a bird eighty feet up with a pebble from a slingshot and lodge the projectile in its eye on the first shot. I could hit a knot in the bark of a tree thirty feet away with a handle-weighted knife. The tree could be forty feet away if the weapon was balanced. And I could take six men down with a bow if I had ten arrows and four minutes.

"Yes," I replied, mentally shifting my approach slightly so as to avoid lying blatantly in my answer. "I've had some practice with knives. I shot a bow a couple of times. But I think I'm okay at the slingshot, too."

This earned some low whistles and crows from the male side of our cluster.

"I like her," Router announced paternally. "Let's give Tiny a break—now I'm actually curious as to how many men _you've_ murdered to gain respect in a District full of little blond hotties." He directed his icy blue gaze to Wonder, who didn't react at all to his jab. On second glance, I noticed a vein pulse underneath her jaw as she clenched it in silent anger. If I had had a knife, I could slit that vein in one clean sweep and left her unconscious to bleed to death or drown in her own blood. Whichever should occur first.

Resisting the strong urge to meet her prying eyes confidently, I slouched my narrow shoulders forward and let my eyes track down to her feet in a display of silent fear.

"I haven't killed anyone," she answered smoothly, addressing Router directly. "I know a hundred different ways to, though, and I could very easily practice on you right now."

Router held up his hands. "Hey, just curious here. Retract the claws, beasty."

"Do you have any… special talents we should know about?" Sebastian peered up at her through his fair eyelashes. "Seeing as we're all in an alliance here and really should trust each other," he tacked half-heartedly onto the end. I noticed how his brilliant blue eyes flickered momentarily to her clearly toned biceps before gluing themselves back on her wary face.

"I know my way around a sword," she said emotionlessly, gaze wandering over my head and to the different stations at which the other eighteen tributes were now acquainting themselves with different sorts of killing devices.

"That's impressive," my District partner commented lowly. He moved smoothly to stand nearer to her side. "Care to show me? I'm usually pretty talented with long, lethal sticks but the sword and I have never really clicked…"

It was very clear in her green gaze that his velvety tone and long fingers trailing slowly up her wrist took no effect on her judgment. "Mia," she demanded, the order hardly softened by her non-aggressive body posture, "you have excellent shoulders. I'll show you how to use them instead of your elbows and wrists to get more leverage on heavy, unbalanced weapons."

Mia seemed taken aback by the fact that this One girl thought that she might possibly have something more to learn, but nodded pleasantly enough and led the way to the station across the gym that sported the clearly lethal and freshly polished weapons, as well as erectly waiting Avox in white protective gear.

As soon as those three left (Sebastian already moving ahead to speak quietly with Mia) Slink pulled Router slowly to his feet and they faced each other for a few moments without speaking.

"I want to see what Tiny can do," Router announced, running a hand sloppily through his mop of pitch-black hair and teasing the ends into an even more ridiculous mess than they had been in before.

Slink shrugged and rolled his shoulders. "Don't really care as long as I get to beat the shit out of one of these Avox girls."

Router turned his icy gaze back on me, the paternal edge still clear in his eyes. "How are you at hand-to-hand?"

My thoughts flew to the warehouse back in Four that my father and I had turned into a sort of training room. It had started as a deserted hunk of concrete that stunk of fish and hosted empty wooden crates in all its corners. Father had cleared a space in the middle of the room and announced that I would no longer be going to school; that instead, I'd be here every day with him to "improve my talents."

That had been the week before I'd turned four. He showed me how to hold a knife, and how to hit a man. He told me that one day, I'd be able to show everybody how special I was, and then he and I would get to live happily, and have lots of money and food. So the warehouse had slowly begun to clear out of stinky sardine crates, and filled instead with a wide variety of weapons, mostly nicked from the real training centers around Four. Blades had replaced cobwebs and forgotten rubbish. Mats were dragged in, and I eventually got used to exchanging blows with my own father. He was no master, but his mistakes were my learning devices. I was eight when I first beat him in a hand-to-hand fight. Since then, we'd just been timing my victories, writing the digits on the unpainted walls as constant reminders of how I could become better, faster and stronger.

My current time was twenty-four seconds to disable, twenty-eight to kill.

"A little," I squeaked, curling my fingers around the fabric of my loose tee shirt. Router smirked and stretched hugely as he led us over to the arena lined with navy blue gym mats. A broad-shouldered instructor watched us approach warily, the numbers pinned to the fronts of our shirts clearly pleasing him.

"I thought some Car—_talented_ tributes might find me eventually," he said with a smile, kicking one of the partially folded mats open with the tip of his running shoe. Slink grinned back, cracking his knuckles audibly and leering at a particular Avox assistant. I noticed the way her knees quivered ever so slightly in her skin-tight body suit; a tiny drip of nervous sweat beaded on her temple and a minuscule muscle in her upper lip twitched. She was scared senseless, and had probably never fought anyone in her entire life. Not like she needed to; her job here was to be a punching bag.

"You kids know the basics?" the instructor barked at us, his canine-like grin still blazing. He looked like a burly gym teacher admiring his favorite students. It curdled my appetite, and I itched to destroy one of the Avox assistants standing motionlessly in heaps of their own fear. But off course I wouldn't. I couldn't, not so early in the game. I had to wait until we were loose in the arena to really kick it into gear.

"A thing or two," Slink replied with a similarly predatory beam.

"You can use these two mats here, take your pick of a partner. They all have the same level of experience, and are categorized by body weight and height. And don't worry about going easy. Seriously. There's plenty more where these came from!" The man gave a beefy laugh and slammed a meaty hand on Router's shoulder before strutting off to try and recruit a couple of kids standing nearby and watching the two boys and me.

Slink strut slowly by the six Avoxes, sizing each one up as he passed. It didn't take long for him to grab the upper arm of a particularly pretty girl; he probably outweighed her by at least fifty pounds and had six inches on her. It was not an even match, not by a long shot, but I doubted he was looking for a challenge. He just wanted to show off.

Router rolled his eyes at his ally as if he was exasperated with a misbehaving pet. He didn't stop him, though, as the One boy pulled the girl over to the furthest mat and placed her where he needed her to be to begin. If her fear had been obvious before, now it was blinking in neon lights. As he poised himself for the first strike, she froze up and became rigid and braced in her completely unprotected vertical position. One blow would knock her clear off her feet.

Router was more sensible in his choice. He and a hard-eyed, muscular boy retreated to a mat that allowed plenty of space for Slink and his match.

The Two boy glanced up at me questioningly. "You just going to take notes, or are you actually going to fight someone?" His tone was light and teasing. He trusted me.

I shot him a shy smile and moved forward to tap the very smallest girl on the shoulder. She seemed relieved to be paired with me instead of one of the boys. I shoved stiffness into my movements to imitate awkwardness as I picked a mat. After setting the girl at a good distance from me, facing me in her complete unprepared entity, I raised my hands in fists near my jaw. This would be a smart starting position if my opponent were attacking; she clearly wasn't, but it was a beginner's mistake and for the next week I would be playing the beginner.

Just as I was about to calculate how hard I'd have to swing to get a strong reaction without giving myself away, a scream ricocheted around the gym. A relative silence followed it as every tribute and instructor looked around for the cause. In any other situation, I would take advantage of my opponent's foolish but temporarily distraction and attack from her blind side, but instead I forced my limbs into inaction and wheeled around to find the source of the noise.

The pretty brunette Avox standing opposite Slink was kneeling with both of her hands pressed to her face. Blood dripped down her wrists and stained her white jumpsuit with bold scarlet drops. A sob racked her thin frame, making an odd sucking noise between her palms. It seemed extremely loud in the quiet that surrounded her.

Slink grabbed her roughly by the elbows and towed her to her feet, ripping her hands away from her face to inspect it for himself. He seemed irritated, and impatient, yet flustered as he floundered with a girl who he wasn't technically responsible for, and he'd just been informed was disposable.

"It's not that bad," he told her tensely, his voice low and almost impossible to pick up under the babble that slowly filled the gym again. "It's broken, yeah, but that's minor. Get a grip so we can continue." She stood motionlessly by him for another moment, blood and tear stained face frozen in shock, with his hands roughly gripping her elbows and supporting almost all her weight. The knuckles of his right hand, I noticed, were stained with her blood.

My own Avox's hand flew to her mouth, eyes widening in shock and pity for the other girl. Foolish. I could have killed her ten times already if we'd actually been fighting. But the resemblance between the girl who stood before me and the girl with the shattered nose in Slink's arms was clear. They must have been sisters. Or something. I couldn't care less. An Avox is an Avox; they're bad people and deserve to be here. It's really just simple as that.

"Do you need a replacement, or…?" Router called uncertainly over to where Slink and the girl were still standing. His partner had a split lip already, but was dealing exceptionally well with the other wounds he'd clearly received in the past few minutes.

"No," Slink called back, "I like this one. She's fine."

Our proximity to their mat allowed us to catch the next few words he murmured by the wounded girl's ear. "I'll try not to screw with your face, sweetheart, but no promises on where else my hands might go."

She gasped and tried to draw away and bring her hands back up to her face, but he'd already struck her side, hard. She was clearly winded, crumpling onto the blood-smeared mat helplessly while trying to grasp her middle for air.

"Stand up," Slink ordered roughly, hands back on her elbows. She cried out again as he straightened her, but with another harsh whispered threat she stood still. The next blow was to her collarbone, and this time she did scream.

"What the _hell_?" a masculine voice demanded from a nearby station. The quiet that had fallen again in the gym made his shout seem even louder and more threatening. I raked the crowd for its owner, but the combat instructor spoke first in his rage-infused rush across the mats to where the injured girl and the One boy stood.

"I'm so sorry," he growled as he approached them. For a split second, I thought he was addressing the girl whose face was covered in blood and tears, and whose nose now had an unnatural bend in it, and whose skin on her collarbone was blotching with popped blood cells and early bruises.

But then to turned to Slink. "They were warned and heavily prepared for these practices. They were _supposed_ to be prepared by now." His wide back shifted to face the sobbing, bloody girl. "_Bitch_," he mumbled under his heavy breath as one of his huge hands rose to strike her across her already stained cheek. She cried out again and staggered back a few steps with dry, raking sobs that were now silent in her fear of this Capitol-issued man.

"There are others back by the table, but I can find you another…" he jerked his head toward the once-pretty girl bluntly to fill in the word choice, "if you want."

"Don't bother. Tiny won't mind me borrowing her Avox for a bit." A crazed sort of anger blazed behind his grey gaze as he turned it on where I stood, stone like, by the sister of the girl he'd just publicly beaten.

The instructor shrugged and seized the broken girl by her arm, towing her roughly after him as he made for an unmarked white door on the back wall. He was clearly muttering to her as he yanked her along, tugging abusively on her arm every few steps with angry emphasis.

Tears were now rolling down the face of the Avox girl I was supposed to be fighting. Slink wiped the blood on his hands onto his shirt hastily as he approached us.

"Hope she's not as fragile," he said to me with a smirk, eyes darting up and down the small girl's frame.

"Leave her alone!"

This shout was not mine. It matched the masculine yell from earlier, and now its source was marching over from the knot-tying station, twine still tangled around his fingers. A large number ten was pinned to his simple tee shirt, and his black bangs flopped over his fiery gaze, doing little to shield its wrath.

"What'd you say?" Slink asked calmly, hand locked around the girl's wrist, frozen in the act of pulling her away to his mat.

"I think you heard me. There's three huge guys over there if you want a good fight." The boy gestured to the table along which the remaining Avoxes lined up.

"You seem to be the one who wants a fight here," Slink countered.

"Rather me than some girl who's half your size and obviously never fought anyone in her life! Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to hit girls?"

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's dumb to get in fights that will probably result in your death?" Slink glanced at the boy's shirt mockingly. "_Ten?_" he spat as an added stab.

Router was suddenly in our tight group, his piercings glinting in the harsh gym lighting. "Back off, Ten. Slink, this one's already taken. Tiny was 'bout to start with her," he glanced down at me, "right?"

I nodded shyly, then directed my gaze at my shoe tips.

"There you have it. Here's a tip, Ten: you live longer when you don't step on such important toes. Go pick fights with your own kind." Router's warning glare at the Ten boy would have sent any other tribute backing down right away. Not this one, apparently.

"I'd rather not. What kind of a person takes a little girl's training partner?" The boy's jaw was set; it was clear he wasn't leaving without a fight.

Slink seemed more than happy to provide one. Without any warning or distinct provocation, he swung a tightly balled fist at the kid's temple. The hit connected; the Ten kid clearly hadn't been expecting it. What surprised me was the fact that he immediately rebounded and hit back, aiming for the tender spot right beneath Slink's ribs. He missed due to the fact that the One boy was faster and had slipped out of the way in the same motion of his second blow to the kid's face. Ten would have a black eye for sure.

That was all the disorientation that Slink needed to deliver the vital hits that took the bold boy down. One elbow to the inside of his neck, one fist to the side and a knee to the stomach as he doubled over, and the Ten boy was crumpled on the ground, unconscious.

"I don't like him," Slink stated simply, his breath coming unevenly as he shook out his wrist and studied his work.

"God, you couldn't have stopped waling on her when she stopped fighting?" Router whined at his ally, also watching the now-still boy.

"Ah, she never fought. I was just having a bit of fun."

"You're going to have to stop acting like a kid if you want to be serious about this," Router warned, eyes darting up to the other boy's momentarily in a brief serious moment. They stood in relative silence for a while. I felt like a third wheel. The cold area around the spotlight was neither comfortable nor familiar to me.

"Did you see his right hook?" Slink asked quietly with a smile.

Router fought his own grin. "This one knows what he's doing."

I didn't see how that fact was amusing, but the boys exchanged tiny grins all the same.

"He _was_ the one in the reapings who was already all bloody and stuff when they called his name," I offered quietly. My act was wearing thin; the desire to really explode and destroy something—anything—was growing stronger with each shy glance I took at either boy's face.

"Right you are, Tiny." Router nodded approvingly and set a brother-like hand on my shoulder. I fought the instinctive flinch that was fighting to surface under human contact.

And as they called us for lunch, all my mind could process was my annoyance with the fact that it hadn't been me exchanging blows with someone else today. My fight had been taken from me, and I wanted it back. Bad.

* * *

><p><strong>I love the Training Center. It's such a wonderful oppurtunity for non-District, non-allies to mingle. Which is why there will be two (yes, 2) entire chapters of it. Next chapter will be visiting another new focus tribute who hasn't really been mentioned much, as well as our favorite D7 guy and D9 specimen.<strong>

**You have another reason to review today- not just with your reactions to Taia (and the rest of this year's Career pack), but also with what you think the plural of Avox is. I thought, maybe, it was just Avox, but that sounded awkward and looked weird (and my beta reminded me of my already present dislike of it). I went with Avoxes for this chapter, but what says you? Was it somewhere in the books and we just missed it?**

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy <strong>


	9. Shaking Hands

**Summer, I declare, is far too short. My writing, horse, friends, GF, family, and the tiny part of my brain that retains my entire knowledge of Trig agree with me.**

**As always, thanks to my awesome beta Writting2StayHalfSane, for making sure I don't have anyone adjusting their pants. That would have been embarrassing. This chapter visits a new, but far from unotable, boy from Five.**

* * *

><p>A wide array of funny-colored plants lay on the simple wooden tabletop before me. None of them <em>looked<em> remotely deadly. I scrutinized the purplish leaves on a certain shrub in comparison to the crinkled sprout next to it, hoping that maybe if I looked closely enough, their lethal ways would be uncovered. No such luck.

I prodded a yellowish stem with the tip of my finger, knowing that I looked like a complete idiot but still totally missing the lesson with the plants. The wrinkly woman standing on the other side of the table was currently helping a smaller boy next to me sort his own batch of leafy suspects. I was on my own in my task to organize them from harmless to deadly, and I'd never seen a single one of them in my life.

At random, I picked up a thorn-adorned branch and moved it to the far right; thorns seemed likely to be on something that could kill me.

"That's Sprugsweed," a voice intoned suddenly, much closer on my left than I thought anyone else was. A fair hand that was attached to an arm almost covered in wooden bangles plucked the thorny plant from where I'd placed it and categorized it as the second-most harmless.

Upon glancing up, I found myself face-to-face with the reddish-haired guy from Seven. He smiled apologetically and stepped back to his own array of leafy demons. Unlike my tangled green mess, his were all laid out in an orderly line. I didn't doubt they were all exactly where they were supposed to be.

"Uh, thanks," I mumbled. I tried not to be too conspicuous as I began shifting my plants around to match his.

He shrugged. "Thorns are almost always harmless. A lethal plant wouldn't need protection on its outside if it's just going to kill its predator anyway."

Now that he explained it, the thorny plant's placement made much more sense. My hands worked clumsily to move the non-thorny plants into the same places he'd put them.

"We, uh, don't have a lot of plants in Five," I said awkwardly, feeling that if I kept him talking, he would probably stay longer and give me more time to copy his plant assignments. "Well, I mean, we do…but nobody really knows what they're called and they all look the same."

He nodded vaguely, shifting his bright green gaze over to where my plants were slowly falling into line. "Anything shriveled probably won't hurt you, either, unless it has berries or fruit. Then it's probably a bad idea."

I nodded and relocated the purplish plant to the harmless side of the spectrum. "How about… these?" I randomly picked a stem with bright yellow flowers weighing down the tips.

He chuckled to himself briefly, eyeing the plant and my face with clear amusement. "Daffodils. They're just flowers."

"Oh." I laid them on the very left hand side, by the thorns. "They're pretty," I mumbled awkwardly, silently glad to be finished with my set and ready to move on to the next station.

"Yeah," he agreed airily, watching the yellow blooms thoughtfully.

The wrinkly woman swept down upon our non-working hands like a hawk. "Are you boys done?" she asked with syrupy sweetness that felt completely false.

"Yeah," I answered politely, sweeping the black bangs out of my eyes as I looked up at her and silently begged to be cleared to go.

Her beady gaze inspected my set slowly, then the Seven guy's. She huffed a sigh, as if disappointed there was nothing to correct. "Off you go. Excellent job."

I released a heavy breath of air I didn't know I'd been holding as we turned away from the plants table and wandered a few steps toward the center of the gym.

"Thanks," I said stiffly, shoulders tilted awkwardly away from the other kid. "You really know your plants, huh?"

He shrugged again. "I only get to see them all every single day. In the forests, you know."

"Right. Cutting down trees."

We stood in silence for a few moments, my eyes on his face and his face tilted to the ground.

"I'm Jack, by the way," I burst out suddenly, extending my hand. He glanced up quietly and shook it with an admirable grip. The bangles on his arm clinked dully.

"Birch."

"That's a cool name."

"It's a tree."

"Figured."

Something in the back of my head started its nagging as his eyes fell back to the floor, giving me a chance to size up the guy's biceps and broad shoulders. We were about the same height, but he probably had fifteen pounds of muscle on me. I was a skinny kid, and was resigned to the fact that I'd always be a skinny kid, but that didn't mean I couldn't be ever so slightly jealous from time to time.

_I need an ally_, the nagging reminded me. It had started somewhere around the end of the chariot display, when the other tributes had started mingling and figuring out who they were going to stick with in the arena. The Careers had it easy. The Eights seemed to have agreed to something, seeing how they moved through the Center together and helped each other at each station. And honestly, I could do worse than a plant-smart lumberjack who could probably swing an ax like no one's business.

"Hey, um, do you want to go check out the bows?" I asked conversationally, steering myself toward the far corner where the red and white targets were propped.

"I've never touched a bow in my life," he said with an embarrassed laugh. I noticed that he stuck with me, though, instead of going his own way.

"That's okay. I haven't either. But seriously," I added, dropping my voice so that the archers nearby couldn't hear, "how hard could it be?" That was one hundred percent bark and zero percent bite there, but I was much more familiar with being the pilot of a situation than the passenger.

Turned out Birch wasn't that hard to pilot. He was content to follow my lead throughout the rest of the afternoon, quietly taking up whatever station I randomly fell upon and usually outclassing me in his attempts to learn the skill.

After finishing at a sword station that had resulted in the near decapitation of an Avox by my blade (and Birch's impressive slice to the thigh of this own partner), the redhead made the first motion of having an opinion all day. He nudged my shoulder gently, steering me in a very passive way toward one of the stations that we hadn't tried yet. I'd figured we'd be visiting here at some point today, but had been hoping it would be later rather than sooner so as to put off the embarrassing image of me trying to chuck an extremely heavy, sharp object in one direction.

The instructor behind the weapon-laden table took one glance at the number on Birch's shirt and disregarded us completely, continuing his work of polishing one of the more lethal-looking blades.

Unlike every other weapon we'd tried, there was something distinctly _right_ about seeing an ax in Birch's grasp. His soft hands that had seemed so uncertain on every other destructive object now took a familiar hold on this nerve-racking weapon. His eyes traced the curved blade thoughtfully as he weighed it hand to hand.

"You're going to have to show me what to do with this thing or I might cut my own foot off," I warned, tentatively reaching for one of the smaller tools. He immediately slapped my fingers away.

"That's a hurlbat. It has a solid steel belly and probably weighs twenty pounds." There was a knowledgeable yet tired edge to his voice that hinted at an imposing lesson. I sat back and let him take the wheel.

"Try this one," he suggested lightly, swinging his own weapon easily to his side and reaching to indicate a medium-sized piece with an unfinished wooden handle. I lifted it uncertainly.

He sighed at my awkward grip and covered my hands with his own, one at a time, to slide them into a correct position. "You're way to close to the head. Your knuckles would be broken by the fifth swing."

He drew back to admire his placement of my grasp before taking up his own ax. "They're really easy if you know a few basic things," he started simply, leading me slowly toward a line of rough dummies. "This," he banged the metal top of the ax with the heel of his hand, "is the head. And this," with the same hand, he caressed the rest of the weapon, "is the haft. Blade, poll, knob," he tacked on quickly, tapping the sharp edge, blunt edge, and end of the handle swiftly.

The terminology went straight in one ear and out the other as another tribute silently drew nearer to the dummies and us. At first, seeing her size and the width of her limbs, I assumed she was a Three or Nine trying to listen in on my crash-course. Then I caught a glimpse of the weapon in her little grasp and the number on her shirt.

Birch followed my gaze over his shoulder and to the small girl. He smiled gently at her.

"Teaching a Five how to huck an ax? I'm impressed," she said lightly to him, her gaze snagging on me for a moment too long before re-training on Birch.

"He's a fast learner," was Birch's quiet answer. He swept his bangs back in an easy, graceful motion.

The Seven girl studied my face and I found my eyes dropping to the straw-strewn floor. The guts of the dummies before us consisted of a plastic-y hay and some small brown grain that I didn't recognize; it leaked from their stitched feet.

"Sure," she decided after a few seconds. Her attention switched back to her ax, and I saw the same familiar ease in her grip that flowed through Birch's. But in Birch's case, it sort of fit. The thick arms and sturdy shoulders looked capable of dealing with these things. This girl looked about fourteen, with legs like toothpicks and no definition to her torso besides the clear indent around her middle where her ribs stopped and hip bones sprouted. Her overall scrawniness in combination with her wide, intuitive brown eyes made me think of a feline creature. Or a night bird. I couldn't quite tell which.

"This is Jack, by the way," Birch added with an odd gesture from my chest to hers. "Jack, this is Ayla. We used to go to the same school."

Instead of leering at her as she leered at me, I offered my hand for her to shake. Her bony fingers pinched themselves around the joint to my thumb and violently waved and vibrated my entire hand in a tazer-like spasm. I drew back quickly.

"Seven has a… cool way of greeting people," I hedged, rolling my wrist gently and thinking back to Birch's perfectly normal greeting.

"What? I just _shook_ your hand." She shrugged, completely serious, and turned back to her dummy. I glanced up at Birch to find him studying his ax thoughtfully. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was purposefully avoiding my gaze.

"Right," I started broadly, "so head, haft, blade… got it. How do I actually work with it?" Even though my back was now blatantly turned toward her, I could hear the heavy blows the scrawny girl was inflicting on her dummy. I didn't turn around, giving Birch my full attention.

"Well, these two aren't actually weighted for throwing," he started, quickly picking up his previous head of steam. "They're normal wood-splitting tools. But that makes them really easy to swing in the same sort of way you'd swing at a tree." He took a step back and faced his dummy, eyeing it thoughtfully for a second before instructing me to step back.

I was completely impressed with his very first swing; his entire body flowed into the motion, shoulders tightening and constricting easily as the dummy's head flew ten feet off and skidded dryly against the tile floor.

I couldn't tell which one of us was more surprised. He stood for a moment with his weapon still taunt and outwards, staring blankly at the empty shoulders of the dummy, then down to the head, and back to the dummy again.

"Um," he said uncomfortably after a beat of silence. "So yeah. That's pretty much the idea. You'll want your feet shoulder-width apart and really sturdy, like that, so you don't go toppling over. That's really good. Now you just want the energy and momentum of the head to flow through your arms; it's kind of like the ax is just an extension of you. Give it a couple swings. Down low, like this. Keep your wrists really elastic or you'll strain them. That's good. Now just kind of… swing at it."

Our axes swung at the same time, his making a huge slice in his dummy's side and mine barely slicing the fabric of its chest. Grain poured out of the wound in his dummy and leaked and spat out of mine. I felt rather accomplished to have broken the "skin."

"That was good," he said enthusiastically, trying to pull the edges of his dummy's gaping wound together to stop the stuffing on its bid for freedom. "Just this time, don't tighten up when you make contact. Follow through with it and absorb the hit in your chest, not your back, okay?"

After fifteen more minutes of dummy-destruction, my entire torso ached and my wrists were already starting to swell. The call for lunch was mercifully timed. We set our weapons back on the table and I led the way into the flow of tributes funneling into the cafeteria set on the side of the gym. It was heartening to see that many other tributes seemed much worse for wear from the past two days of training; a small boy with a tattered six on his shirt looked like the knives station hadn't agreed with him; the boy from Ten had a huge black eye and swollen lip and walked with a distinct stiffness; and the girl from Six seemed to be having some sort of reaction to the mud and materials from the camouflage station.

Birch and I fell into line along the buffet, grabbing glass plates from a pile as well as ornately decorated silverware bound in soft cloth napkins. I found myself wedged between my new ally and the itchy girl from Six, whose gaze never lifted from the salad bar. She had white bumps dotted all along her exposed arms and up to her shoulders; her collarbone was splotched with a painful-looking rash. Her face stayed unscathed, however, arising the usual awkward flutter in my gut by its seeming perfection.

She had to be at least a year and a half older than me, but that sort of added to the allure. I tightened my grip on my plate and glued my gaze to the thirteen different salads lined up before me, doing my best to force my thoughts into order. The unnamed pretty girl helped herself to an ample amount from the dish labeled with a six. It was right about then that I noticed that the guy in front of her was attempting conversation.

"Nice tat. Are the initials your boyfriend's? Seems like an endearing gesture…"

I glanced up, doing my best to be inconspicuous, to see who exactly was hitting on the Six girl. Dread settled in my stomach with only one glimpse of his lean, swimmer's build and mess of blond hair. The black designs clearly visible through his white tee shirt didn't help either.

The salads gave way to a bar of bread baskets, again with a District number or Capitol symbol on each. The black-haired girl who now had my full attention without even knowing it opted for a fluffy white Capitol roll instead of the thick grayish ones from Six. The guy in front of her snatched three from the Four basket.

"A rose. For your sweet side, maybe? Or thorny… I could deal with thorny."

I dropped two Capitol rolls sourly onto my plate beside an unfamiliar salad that I didn't remember selecting. With the addition of a piece of meat I also didn't recognize, we picked up our plates and began splitting off to the different round tables scattered about the cafeteria. Even as I tried not to watch outright, the Four guy caught the Six girl by the wrist and tilted it to better expose the colored ink printed there.

"What does it stand for?" he asked her lowly.

"Piss off," she hissed back, yanking her hand free and marching off to a half-inhabited table by the door.

"Suit yourself," he called after her, completely unfrazzled by her hostility. It was clear that he was aware of the longing gazes that traced him as he took a seat at the Career table; the Eight girl was much more subtle about it than my dewy-eyed District partner and the lean girl from Eleven.

Birch snapped out of it a moment before I did; he bumped my shoulder a little more roughly than necessary and steered us to the emptiest table in the room. There was only one moody kid perched at the end of one of the long benches; he glanced at us as we approached, clearing sizing us up. Birch paused, opening his mouth as if about to ask if we could sit, but I clattered my plate down on the plastic table and slid onto the bench before he could get the air.

Birch slowly settled into the place across from me, leaving lots of room on the bench between himself and the other kid. When the kid shifted his shoulders I could read the number on his shirt; nine, with a tear halfway through suggesting a close call at the sword station.

"You're probably sick of axes," Birch said sheepishly, ignoring the disgusted glances the Nine boy was shooting him every few moments. "But I can still show you how to throw one if you want."

I shoveled a forkful of salad into my mouth and nodded with a grunt in a noncommittal reply.

"That Four guy's an asshole," I stated into the quiet that settled after I swallowed.

Birch nodded vaguely, keeping his eyes determinedly on the dull-colored salad on his plate. His fork did a lot of twirling and not much transporting.

"I mean," I continued, taking his silence for the okay, "he really thinks he's all that, doesn't he? Just because he's a swimmer, and has that surfer-guy look—"

"And the blue eyes. And the sexy tattoos," Birch told his plate.

"Yeah, exactly. He's so tacky. Girls are smart to keep their distance, you know? Not to even get caught up in that crap right before the arena."

"I dunno," the Nine guy grunted suddenly, lifting his face to speak directly to me. "He kicked some serious ass at the trident station, and he beat the crap out of an Avox dude. They practically had to scrape the guy's remains off the mats when he was done."

It annoyed me that anyone could stick up for such a jerk, and I stuffed my mouth with leaves again, not even tasting the oil that coated them.

"But that's to be expected," Birch pointed out sensibly, one hand flitting in the air to illustrate his point while the other continued to rearrange his salad. "All the Careers are amazing at everything. It sort of comes with the territory."

"Yeah, well, the One guy is a serious perv. Did you see him yesterday with that Avox chick?" I coughed on my salad briefly.

The Nine guy shrugged. "She was hot."

Birch scooted even further on the edge of the bench, hastily disguising the motion as a stretch. His chunky bangles clinked against his plate as he went back to twirling.

"Nice bracelets," the Nine guy snorted, not even lifting his gaze to look at the boy next to him.

"Thanks," Birch replied tartly.

My mind was stuck on how low someone's life must have been to become as big of a jerk as the Career guys. I found myself unable to picture a District in which kids were raised with a killing and winning mentality; it clashed with the only District atmosphere I've ever known drastically. Five was the District of mathematics, and conservative views and logical thinking went hand-in-hand with them. School had been all about the correct, reasonable way of looking at things, and how there really were no such things as opinions when you got down to what's technically right and what's technically wrong. Five's teaching theme was very black and white; no creativity or originality were recognized or encouraged. Everyone was about being right and proving that you were right; or recognizing the right-ness of your opponent's argument and agreeing with the correct idea.

Quality of life was low on Five's priority list, and we were subject instead to efficiency and logic in every possible situation they could be applied. Why should anyone want a garden if the local supermarket could supply all of their bland food items free in exchange for labor at any of the District's other businesses? Why would you want to wear colorful clothes when black and white inks are easiest to come by and accommodate, and dictate an even color palette over the entire District? And God forbid anyone should question the logic of the Labs that ran the District; their word was the highly-researched and proven law; they were _right_.

Not the most fun environment for a looser spirit to grow up in. Especially with a mother who acted much more like a slave driver, demanding that in order to keep our house efficient as living quarters, _I_ needed to single-handedly keep the old place spotless. Needless to say I didn't spend much time at the house. As soon as I'd turned sixteen and officially finished school, I'd dedicated my days to lingering around the District with my little crowd of friends and wreaking prank-related havoc in the most orderly, efficient and logical joints of the District. What I love most about pranks is how they go completely against everything we'd been preached in school; they didn't solve any problems, or achieve a higher goal, or work toward a more efficient community. They were just _fun_.

"Did you borrow them from your sister or take them from mommy's drawer?" the Nine boy was prodding nasally when I snapped back into attention and tore a bite out of my roll.

"My friend made them, actually," was Birch's quietly polite reply. "They're made of the seven most common woods we lumber."

Nine scrutinized the wooden cuffs adorning my ally's arms. "There's eight," he pointed out savagely.

"The thinnest ones are birch wood." He tapped the very lightest, slimmest bangle on his left arm with his fork.

"Let me guess; your _soul_ tree?" Nine snorted.

"My name, actually. I'm Birch Sawson. It's nice to meet you." The forced calmness in his voice conveyed that it wasn't actually nice to meet the nosy boy at all.

"Abel Miller. Pleasure." The feeling was evidently mutual.

"And I'm Jack. Hailing from the elite District of Five." I took another bite of salad, its gritty taste finally registering on the back of my tongue.

"You have any allies?" Abel questioned me blatantly, gaze still skipping over Birch as if he wasn't there.

I inclined my head slightly to the boy across from me and swallowed loudly. "Besides Birch, nope."

"So he _is_ with you…" Abel muttered, stabbing a hunk of meat on his plate with unnecessary force. "Cute," he mumbled around his new mouthful.

Birch shot the Nine boy a glare that hardly lasted for more than a second; I half-believed all the weapon-chucking was making me see things.

"And do you have any allies?" Birch asked politely, slowly separating the green salad leaves from the purple ones with the tip of his fork.

Abel snorted. "I'm from Nine. People aren't exactly flocking to buddy up with me."

"So I take that as a no…" The redhead seemed ever so slightly smug.

"Actually, I was going to ask Jack if he wanted to join me," Abel snapped back, pointedly addressing a space somewhere over Birch's forehead. "But it seems like you two are a package deal."

"And you'd rather have me alone?" I drawled, not quite understanding his blatant dislike of my ally. Sure, Birch was a little… unique. Feminine, for sure, and not quite all the way there sometimes, but he was nice and he certainly knew how to decapitate someone in less than ten seconds. It occurred to me that he might be categorized in a tiny minority that Five had always kept hushed up and tucked away; but what did I care if he liked boys? I'd never actually met someone like that before, and the concept intrigued me in a strange way.

"I'd rather have you without someone like _him_ attached." Abel directed his gaze back at his plate.

"And what do you mean by that exactly?" Birch asked the table, hinting at a temper that I couldn't have guessed him of.

"I mean it's _creepy_ to have a crush on another dude," the Nine boy growled harshly, sliding off his end of the bench to stand. "And I don't want to be around your homo air for too long. It's probably bad for my junk." The sour blond snatched up his plate roughly and banged Birch's temple with his elbow as he stormed off to the bussing cart.

A few tributes near our table were watching us with the quiet curiosity of bystanders wishing to stay as such. As soon as they caught me noticing their staring, their eyes dropped back to their food sheepishly.

"Not an ally, that one," I commented dryly. "I just hope he doesn't make it his mission to destroy us now."

Birch glanced up at me with a renewed shyness in his tiny smile. "You're afraid of a Nine?"

"No—I just don't want someone specifically out to get us."

"Us?"

"Our alliance. You, me, whoever else we can pick up… decent people, I mean."

Birch studied my face for a moment, clearing looking for something that he wasn't finding. "And you're okay with… me? Being me?"

I shrugged. "I honestly don't care if you dig guys or girls. Just—wait, do you like _me?_" The thought hadn't really occurred to me before, and it came stumbling off my tongue in a less than tactful way. "I mean—"

"No! No, no, I mean, you're cute and everything, but—it's not like that. I mean, not cute!" he bumbled on, face growing more and more red with every word as he watched me smile slowly. "Well, yes, cute but just sort of—manly? No. Not unattractive in the least, I mean, you know how girls like you, but—"

"Okay, okay, you can shut up now," I laughed, waving him down casually. "That, I have to say, was the first time any guy has called me cute, but I guess I'll just put it on the records."

Birch's fair hands covered his blazing face, but I could hear his giggles behind them. "Well," he said with a deep breath as he drew them away, "now that that's cleared up. Do you want me to teach you how to throw an ax or not?"

* * *

><p><strong>Oh, Birch. Oh, Jack. Oh, Abel.<strong>

Jack was very tricky to write, and as the author I don't think I really nailed his personality here. Luckily, next chapter is the interviews, which promise to be lengthy and very exposing for everyone involved.  
>Anyone who's tried to follow my Fics knows that I am not the best at updating, and probably won't be very happy to hear that I might not be posting as often once school commences. Partly because I'll be busier, partly because these chapters are 2-3 times longer than LYGB chappies were (I kind of like them longer...) and partly because my beta also needs to pursue and education and won't be able to whip my typo-infested writing into shape in a single day anymore.<p>

As always, review. Take the forty seconds and tell me your thoughts. It can and will make my day.

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy <strong>


	10. Influences

**And we meet Via from Six. Enjoy.**

I'm going to go ahead and slap a disclaimer on this whole Fic before I get sued or something... I, Topsy, aka The Other Perspective, am not the original author or creator of the Hunger Games series. That's Suzanne Collins. Colins? I do not own any plot, objects, characters, etc that are hers. I also don't own the ten focus tributes.

While I'm on a roll... This Fic is rated T for violence, brief sexual material, disturbing themes and images, and adult themes. I'll warn you before an M-ish chapter.

**I think we're clear. Don't sue me.**

* * *

><p>He was leering at me again. Leering in a way that any decent person would refrain from.<p>

My fluttering hands searched for something to do, needing action to sooth the nerves that threatened to jolt straight through my skin; I rested them against the skirt of my dress and tried to remind myself that I was strong, I looked beautiful, and I was ready for this. The thoughts did little to help my racing pulse, though, or my constant visions of me tripping on my way up to the stage, or blabbing about something personal under the heat of the spotlights.

And his staring wasn't helping either.

All twenty-four of us were gathered in a sort of lounge area right outside of the studio where we would soon be filming our interviews. The steel double doors bore no windows to peek onto the stage, leaving our destination completely up to our own worried minds. And it was clear that I wasn't the only one suffering from nerves; the girl from Nine looked about ready to pass out, and all the color was vacant from the Eight girl's face as she fiddled with a bright yellow sash on her dress.

So it annoyed me that the Career pack seemed so at ease with the fact that we were about to be on national television. The One and Two boys seemed to be playing some sort of hand game that involved the smacking and punching of each other's arms. Their crows of delight were the most prominent sound in the fabric-walled room. By them stood their District partners, whose heads were tilted in soft conversation. Only the hiss of the S's in their words carried to my ears. And the Four girl just watched the boy's game with completely vacant eyes, passing her lack of interest for boredom quite successfully.

Now he had the gall to approach me; he wound his way around the whispering girls and clustered Eights, past the cowering Threes and softly whimpering Twelves. My District partner hardly even glanced up when the Four boy reached us, though it was clear that everyone in the quiet room had watched him make his way across it. He wasn't exactly a subtle being.

"Nervous?" he purred softly, shoving my District partner deftly away to lean on the textured wall closest to me. I stumbled back a step onto a plush red couch and crossed my legs in an attempt to make the motion look purposeful.

"No. Piss off."

I noticed the Ten boy nudge the Eleven boy out of the corner of my gaze; both of them now watched my predator leer down at me.

"You don't mean that. Not _really_. I'm just waiting for the realization to kick in." He spoke quietly, his voice coming out in a low growl that would have many other girls hot and bothered. Weaker girls. _Stupid_ girls. The same kind of girls who would be completely ensnared by the fact that this guy's stylist had put him in a sheer silver shirt that did nothing to cover his heavily tattooed chest and washboard abs.

He noticed my momentarily roaming eyes with a feline-like smile. "Like what you see?"

"Those tats will be nasty and wrinkled when you're ninety. You'll regret them."

"I don't plan on reaching ninety. I'd rather live _hard_ and die young, if you know what I mean."

His sexual innuendo was not completely lost on me; but its effect fell far from where he'd intended and if anything, it turned me off even further.

"Get away from me," I hissed quietly, keenly aware of almost every other tribute watching us.

"That might be difficult, seeing as we're in a fairly small room with twenty-two other kids."

"I _will_ hit you." The threat had sounded much more impressive in my head than it did out loud. He smiled his feline smile and continued to watch me with his steady, piecing gaze.

"I don't think that will be necessary. I just want to talk to you."

I scoffed and presented my best eye-roll.

"You don't believe me?" he crooned softly. "Suit yourself. I'll keep my hands in my pockets if you agree to a conversation."

"I can hardly agree to something I'm already a part of."

"So we have a deal."

"I'm not making any deals with you."

He shrugged. "Considering I plan on dying young, you have to understand my desperate need to know whose initials are on your wrist. It's on my bucket list."

"Then you'll just have to die wondering."

He chuckled. "There are lots of things that I will die wondering about you." His gaze strayed in a way that made me want to slap him right then; instead I spoke in hopes of attracting his eyes back to my face.

"They're not a boyfriend's."

My plan was successful—his fair eyebrows shot up as his gaze snapped back to mine. "Oh? I notice how you say _a_ boyfriend, not _my_ boyfriend. Does that mean you're currently lonely?"

"'Lonely' and 'single' are hardly interchangeable terms," I responded stiffly, meeting his eyes fearlessly.

"Then they're a friend's?" he questioned quietly, reaching for my ink-adorned wrist. I flinched away from his touch far too quickly; my timid, jumpy motion caught in his unwavering gaze. "Touchy, aren't you?" he added in a murmur, almost just for himself.

"They're not a friend's either," I snapped, knotting my fingers into tense snarls in my lap. My bright green skirt dented down to accommodate them, and it occurred to me that I might be getting sit lines. Then I forced myself not to care, seeing as standing up would mean being almost nose-to-nose with my interrogator. "Your hands are not in your pockets," I pointed out childishly. He grinned and stuffed them back into his pockets.

"So a family member's, then. Mother? Father? Grandmother? Sister?"

"That's personal."

"Then I guess I'll have to keep guessing until I get a reaction out of you." He ran a hand through his tousled, almost-white hair thoughtfully. "Brother? Grandfather? Cousin? Aunt? Uncle? Step-sibling? Birth mother? Real father?" He paused to study my face with clear amusement. "I can't think of anything more scandalous than that…"

I bit my lower lip and studied his intricate sandals.

"_Husband?_" he jabbed, eyes shooting down to my lap, clearly searching for a ring. "Damn, if you're married—"

"It's _not_ my husband! I'm eighteen!" I protested, breaking my vow of silence into smithereens.

"More scandalous than _that?_"

"Who ever said it was scandalous?"

"Your face, sweetheart."

"Do _not_ call me that!" The demand ripped out of my throat much louder than I'd originally intended it, stopping even the Career boys in their game to momentarily glance our way.

I dropped my voice back to a whisper. "Just… don't. Hands in pockets!"

He stopped in his sly attempt to brush my brand new side bangs out of my eyes. With a heavy sigh and laughing eyes, he pocketed them again. "I can only think of one other family member that you might think so dearly of as to tattoo on yourself. And I could see why you might not want people to know about it." He paused, a knowing look clouding his features. "Is it a son or a daughter, then?"

Now a true silence fell in the posh lounge. Every single pair of eyes were glued to me in earnest, not one of the surrounding tributes having the decency to not stare outright.

I straightened myself up and met his gaze again, determined to be strong and fearless. "A son," I answered curtly. "Blake."

"B.S." The Four guy nodded to himself, watching the back of my wrist as if he could see the tattoo through my flesh. "Which makes you Olivia S."

I nodded, fighting the heat that was rushing to my cheeks as the other tributes started hushed conversations, punctured with glances and pointing fingers at me. "Via Sanchez. Of Six."

He smirked and offered me a lean hand, decorated with slim white scars that I assumed were from a combination of insane training and working with ropes. "Sebastian Aqueor. At your most humble service."

I did not return the gesture. I knew what could happen when you let a boy shake your hand. If you let him shake your hand, he might trap it a moment too long in his own. He might meet your eyes with his soft brown ones. And if you let him hold your hand, just for a second, he might like it. You might like it. And if you like holding a boy's hand, you might want to see him more often than strictly necessary. And if you want to see a boy, you might like him. Too much. And if you like a boy, you might want to spend time with him. And if you spend time with him, he might like you, too. And if you and this boy were to ever find out that you like one another, you might just find yourself accepting an invitation to a date. Just a casual dinner at a local restaurant, but your stomach is full of butterflies anyway. And if you were to go on one date with this boy, you might find yourself receiving a kiss good-bye on your doorstep. And if he kissed you, you'd obsess over the date and run it over in your head a million times that night.

Then you might hold his hand in the hallway the next day. And you might find yourself going on dates more often. And if you go on lots of dates, and share lots of kisses, then you might just find yourself falling in love. And if you fall in love, then you might find yourself alone at his house one night, and you might not mind if he starts kissing you in a way he never has before, and you might not think much of letting him drag you to his room. And of course if you let him take you to his bed then you than you might be thinking the exact same thing.

And you might wake up alone in the morning. And you might remember you forgot to take the pill. And you might find a drawer full of perfectly good condoms in his bedside stand when he'd claimed that he was fresh out and you would be fine without them. And then the stick would turn pink. And when you tell the boy, he might decide he's not so interested in you anymore. You might fall out of love. You might have a baby and gain a reputation as a slut. You might be frowned upon by every single woman in the District, and seen as easy to every single man. You might have a child to raise, before you even finish school, and you might never want to be near a boy ever again. You might loose all faith in them. And you might decide that you're better off without them.

So I didn't shake the boy's hand.

"I assume you have a horde of allies already?" he asked conversationally, dropping his hand casually without any hint of reaction to my rejection.

"Loads," I answered sarcastically, my gaze now roaming the room for an empty pocket of space that I might be able to slither off to.

"I'm sure that's not for lack of interest," he mused quietly, shifting his lean frame so as to block my only escape route. He made it look like a natural movement, but I caught the tiny smirk that twitched his lip.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, addressing him stiffly and doing my best to shoot daggers with my eyes alone.

He laughed, a bell-like, melodic sound that somehow fit with his persona. "Don't be naïve." He dropped his voice to a husky whisper. "The Five guy certainly has eyes for you. As does Ten. And Eleven. And Slink especially—though I think he could be hazardous to your health, if you know what I mean…"

"I'm _fine_ without an ally, thank you very much. I don't require help from anything or anyone."

"Oh? And when you get to the arena and your leg is half-severed off, you won't need anyone to slop medicine on it and save your life?"

"I would slop it myself," I sniffed. "I _happen_ to be a nurse. And anyway, why would anyone want to save my life? I would be an easy kill in that situation."

"Maybe they like you."

There was an odd beat.

"Then they'd be an idiot, because I'm damaged goods and would make for a really sucky ally."

"I don't see anything damaged about you… experienced girls are hot."

I was on my feet before I'd told myself to be, hands planted firmly against his chest and shoving him with all my might. He was a lot harder to move than I'd been expecting; he was probably twice my weight and solid muscle, so my push only had him taking a single unsteady step backwards. It was enough, though, to make me feel empowered. I hated being a victim. And I really, _really_ wanted to wale on his pretty face until there was nothing left to admire.

A hand closed around my arm as it swung back for a punch. It wasn't rough, but firm enough to stop my limb in its tracks and let it fall back to my side calmly.

"Don't want to mess up your makeup, do you? Or his, for that matter." It was a girl, whose boyish features stirred up recognition in the back of my head. She dropped her petite hand from my arm sheepishly. "And, um, I think we have to go out soon anyway. It took so long to get pretty, it would really be a waste to mess it up because of _him_."

Her face and eyes were kind, and I couldn't immediately spot an ulterior motive behind her token of help. "Uh, yeah, you're right." I brushed my new bangs back into place and smoothed my dress. "That would have been stupid. Thanks."

"No problem."

Her District partner, I noticed, lingered behind her with a brotherly sort of awareness of the smaller girl. He caught me watching him with an easy smile. "I'm Scrim. And I don't think you're a slut—actually, I think you're impressive to be able to raise a baby on your own."

"Thanks," I said uncertainly. He didn't _seem_ sarcastic, but it was a strange comment. "I'm Via."

"Sanchez, right? We overheard you two talking." The girl's eyes flickered to Sebastian, who'd drifted back to the Career corner to talk with his allies. It infuriated me that my temper tantrum had elicited ringing, clear laughter from him, as if he found my little shove to be terribly amusing.

"I'm Melanie, anyway."

I snapped back into attention. "That's a pretty name."

"Thanks."

The low lighting in the lounge flashed on and off three times, catching everyone's attention effectively. The steel doors slit open, omitting a small rodent-like man with too many walkie-talkies and electrical devices to count clipped onto his black uniform.

"Single file line, please, in numerical order by District. Girls before boys."

A great shuffling ensued as tributes struggled to shove themselves into the correct places. The man's chirping voice cut through the confusion occasionally, with unhelpful reminders such as, "No pushing!" and "Quietly, now, and quickly!"

I found myself being shepherded between the guy from Five and the other tribute from Six, pressed uncomfortably close to both. The Five's cologne mixed with my partner's B.O. in an extremely masculine stench that I knew would cling to my hair for the rest of the day. I thought longingly of the shower back in my room in the Training Center with a sort of want that I never knew I would be capable of toward anything Capitol-related.

The squeaky man ordered quiet upon us multiple times, with limited success. It wasn't until the lights of the lounge went out altogether that we fell truly silent, the anxiety in the air mingling with fear and excitement in adrenaline-boosted doses. _Here we go_, I thought bracingly to myself_. I look beautiful. I am strong. I'm a survivor._

And then the doors were thrust open, and the dim light of the studio spilled onto us as we shuffled out. The front row of the studio audience was just empty chairs with white stenciled numbers and letters on each, in case we'd messed up our order in line. I kept my eyes glued to the floor as the audience welcomed us with an energetic applause and the spotlit little stage came into full view. The plastic chair marked with "6F" was my destination, and I was determined to get there in one piece.

It was a relief to find the air in the studio to be much lighter and cooler than that of the lounge. No longer did I swim through fear and nervousness, but instead curiosity and anticipation. It did wonders for my jumpy nerves.

Caesar Flickerman was on his feet onstage. "Welcome, everyone, to the interviews of the tributes of the two hundred sixty-third Hunger Games!" The applause swelled before dying out into silence. "We have an interesting bunch of tributes this year, and I'm sure you're just as eager to meet them as I am. And so without further ado, I'll call up miss Wonder Silver!"

The girl from One had hardly taken her seat before she was mounting the stage confidently. Her stylists had taken a hairpin turn from her gown in the chariot; she was now presented in simple black pencil skirt and light blue satin shirt. Her outfit matched the business-like edge to her steely gaze while flattering her curves flawlessly. As if she needed to look pretty to get sponsors; _everyone_ loves the Ones.

"So Wonder," Caesar started, gaze completely captured with her features. His legs were crossed knee-over-knee, a style that I usually only saw women adapt. "You come from a family of beauties! Your mother has been featured in _The Capitolite_ four times—which is a record for a non-Capitol woman." Feminine cheers and whistles rang from the audience. "But you're the first Silver to volunteer for the Games. May I ask why you chose a life for the Games instead of the life of luxury that your family is so well-known for?"

The blond girl shifted in her chair, thinking over her answer for a moment. "I'm not… like them," she started slowly. "I have… different values. And a different… perspective on what success is." It was clear that she was picking her words very carefully, despite this being a passionate subject. "I believe that looks don't decide a girl's future… and that someone's abilities should be more important than their dress size. I believe that a life as a Victor… will bring me the same respect my family gains just by… being attractive. I would rather earn my status through blood and sweat than through my last name."

There was a smattering of applause throughout the female portion of the audience.

"Very honorable!" Caesar commended. "And how do you feel you've changed since you volunteered?"

"I feel like, at least to my District, I've been noticed. For the first time in my life, I get to be Wonder, instead of one of the Silver girls… I'm now in an environment that doesn't really care where I came from or who I'm related to. A name won't help me in the arena… now I get to show everyone what I can do. Instead of just how I look."

"Excellently worded. And right you are—you seem very capable of great things!"

Her buzzer rang, and Caesar bid her a quick farewell as the audience provided the obligatory applause.

"Slink Prynter!"

The brunette boy passed Wonder on his way up, straightening his shirt once last time before plastering his best "Like I care" expression onto his pale features.

"What do you feel is your greatest advantage in these Games?" Caesar asked politely, seemingly enthralled by this unremarkable Career.

"I dunno. I'm not too bad at hand-to-hand, though. And I could be worse with a mace."

"Oh wow. Do you have any strategies?"

"Stick with the pack. Keep my head down. Try not to get killed." He shrugged. "And if I should run into that Ten kid while I'm at it… then all the better for me, all the worse for him." His grey eyes locked on a boy seated further to my left, a slightly insane hint to his sneer.

"So the rumors are true! What exactly happened with you and Arden that has put you two at such opposite ends?"

"He got in my way. And insulted my techniques. He should know to pick on kids his own size by now… but it doesn't really matter. We have a whole arena of bonding ahead."

The rest of Slink's interview was pointless chatter that led into the Two girl's quite nicely, seeing as she, too, had very little to say about anything. Her most memorable moment came toward the very end of her interview.

"What's your motto for these Games?"

She searched the floor for an answer, pitch black hair swinging around her bony shoulders. "I guess I just have to remind myself that I have a brain in my head and life in my feet. And that's really all I'm going to need to win this thing."

The buzzer rang, making the girl jump ever so slightly. "Thank you, Cadmium—or should I say, Mia!"

She hardly earned any applause.

The Two boy scared the little girl in me with his appearance alone. Metal bars and rings sliced through his face, glinting on his brow, nose, and on the edges of his mouth. His ears were a study in metal and flesh. The whole image seemed so unnatural to me. I felt myself squirm uncomfortably as cold, uneasy fear spread through my chest.

So it was ironic that he seemed to be the most decent Career of the pack.

He laughed when Ceasar asked about his piercings. "They're actually letting me keep them in for the arena! Yeah… the council told my mentor that they're more of a danger to me than anyone else or something like that. I don't know what they see happening… some kid ripping my face off, maybe. Thing is, they'd never get close enough to try."

"So you aren't afraid of the killing aspect?" Caesar asked conversationally.

The boy paused in thought, nibbling on a bar through his lower lip. "Of course I'm afraid," he stated simply. "I don't think there's one tribute in this room who isn't afraid of what happens in the arena. No matter what Slink or Sebastian tell you," he tacked on with a grin. "But as for me killing other tributes… I dunno. I don't look forward to it, but I accept that death is a natural part of these Games. And I'll kill when I get the opportunity to… I just won't be murdering in cold blood. It doesn't necessarily need to be a long and painful process." He laughed suddenly. "I won't be burning anyone in nets!"

He still scared me, even after his interview finished and it was clear that he wasn't the air brain that Two had provided last year. Something about the confidence he hosted, plus the dark hair and black eyes, plus the iron arms and the piercings… he _looked_ too much like the stereotypical killer.

Both the Threes passed in a similar way as their District always does. Unremarkable. Easily forgotten. Both marked for slaughter at the bloodbath.

The mother in me disliked the Four girl's presence in the situation. She was too small, and too sweet to be fighting alongside tributes like the Two boy.

"But what an outstanding score! An eleven from such a small person! It's not unheard of from your District, but you must have something up your sleeve." Caesar leaned casually on the arm of his chair, watching her kindly.

The girl's toes hardly brushed the ground from her perch at the edge of the leather armchair. She swung them back and forth, heels bouncing off the cushioned panels as she smiled slowly. "I do have something up my sleeve," she hedged, clearly enjoying the attention. "And I think that I may be easily underestimated. Because I'm small, or because I'm shy, or because I come from a poor family of sardine canners…" This elicited heartfelt _aww_'s from the audience. "But I'm motivated, and I think that as long as my heart is in it, there's nothing I can't do!"

"Excellent thinking! Do you have any allies to help you in the arena?"

She laced her fingers and smiled even broader. "I've made a couple of friends. Slink, for one. And Sebastian. And Mia. But Router's my favorite."

The audience loved this; they cooed again as the Two boy waved from his seat in the front row.

Caesar laughed. "You certainly can pick 'em! Three big boys and an extremely cunning girl. Smart choices!"

"Thank you," she squeaked, embarrassed by the adoration of the audience. She twirled one of her pigtails around a tiny finger. I noticed how she didn't include Wonder in her list of "friends" and wondered if it was just a simple mistake or if there was something else going on there…

"Best of luck to you!" Caesar grinned as her time was up. "I know I'm rooting for you. Taia Opie, everyone!"

Their applause was still bounding around the studio by the time Sebastian was onstage. Unlike the previous tributes, he didn't _sit_ in the gorgeous armchair; he _lounged_. There was a casual, relaxed sort of confidence he held in the way he arranged his arms and crossed his ankle over a knee.

"Sebastian," Caesar smiled. "Sebastian, Sebastian, Sebastian! You're here this year!"

The audience, I noticed, easily took likings to pretty tributes. They were all too eager to applaude for the blond swimmer.

"Reaped last year, but beaten to the spot by Neveah! Second try's a charm, eh?" Caesar continued to beam at him.

Sebastian returned the smile easily. "Last year just wasn't my time. And Neveah did really well—but it's about time Four had a Victor. And I'm ready to _go all the way_ with this."

It could have been a trick of the spotlights, but I could have sworn his gaze flickered to me for the briefest moment.

"And a good thing, too. Between you and Taia, I think the sponsors are begging to invest in Four!" The midnight blue suit-clad host laughed. "And it seems you're already settled into an alliance, am I right?"

Sebastian shrugged. "That is what it seems."

"And aren't you and Router quite the pair for sore eyes. Am I right, ladies?"

The audience swelled with more female support. Sebastian just continued to smile the feline, relaxed smile. "We decided that I'd go for the tats and he'd do the piercings. Together they're kind of overkill." He winked at a random face in the crowd. "But seriously, these are kind of like my tokens, in a way." He craned his neck to glance down at his own chest. "I got them a while back, and haven't regretted them a day since."

This time he definitely looked at me.

"And they're… waves? Swirls?" Caesar made a show of squinting at the swimmer's torso. "Sorry, I can't quite see them through your stunning wardrobe…"

Which, of course, spurred the blond to his feet, where he unbuttoned the front of his sheer shirt so it fell open, exposing his bare chest to national television. _What a jerk. So pig-headed, and completely full of himself_.

"These," he said, pointing out the black swirls sweeping down his left shoulder, "are indeed waves. And these," he indicated the right side of his chest with his chin, "are ropes. Tie-down ropes, nets… Four's crawling with ropes. And then a four, of course." He lifted his right shoulder, letting his shirt fall to his elbows. "And all back there," he continued, turning around to show off his ink-riddled back. My skin stung just thinking of what it must have been like to have all those done… I'd hated the after-sting of my one small tattoo, and he had too many to count. His, I noticed, were all done in black, unlike my letter-strewn red rose. I wondered if it hurt less if they only used one color.

"…Are mostly different depictions of the sea, and other unimportant bits that I felt the urge to ink across my skin."

The audience hung on his every word now, laughing easily as he took his seat again.

"And—oh, what's this?" Caesar reached out toward Sebastian's left ear with clear curiosity.

"My actual token. It's a fish fly."

"A fish fly through your ear?"

"Yeah… it was sort of an accident."

Caesar scooted to the edge of his seat. I imagined him munching on popcorn. "Do tell."

"Well, I was at a… party. And might have been under an influence… or two. And I was enjoying the company of… a few females…"

The crowd hooted and whistled.

"And I don't quite remember exactly how it got there, but it definitely had something to do with this one blond and a tackle shed tucked away in the backyard… Anyway. Hurt like hell in the morning, but at least the pain in my ear took my mind off my hang—headache!" He laughed as his buzzer sounded, and the crowd seemed very reluctant to have the pretty boy leave the stage. He definitely took an extra second to catch my gaze on his way back to his seat. He seemed incredibly smug. I scowled back.

The girl from Five reminded me of the Threes in her inability to string words together in comprehensible sentences. If her stylists had tried to pretty her up, it could only go so far; thin, scrunched shoulders and a painfully awkward arched spine stole any beauty from her appearance. The fact that her face was white as sheet didn't help her, either.

The audience, it seemed, had let their minds wander off into space over the course of the Five girl's interview; they snapped back into attention when the Five boy sloped up to where Caesar awaited him.

"Hello, Jack," our host greeted him warmly before both men took their seats. "How is the Capitol treating you?"

"It's great," he answered, though it seemed sort of forced and fell false to my ears.

"Good to hear it! Coming from all the way out in Five, you must really be impressed with the sort of things we Capitolites take for granted!"

The mop-haired boy nodded vaguely, watching his shiny-toed boots.

"Are you nervous for tomorrow?" Caesar pressed gently, watching Jack's face as it slowly turned from open to thoughtful.

"Yes… sort of. Like the Two guy said, I think everyone is." The words came uncertainly, and he continued to address the ground. "But if I've ever been ready to be launched into the Games, I am now. All the preparing has really been helpful—I'm actually sort of eager to get into the arena. Sure, I might be slowly dismembered limb by limb," his gaze flashed to the Career's end of the chairs, "or have my eyes gouged out from their sockets or my nails ripped out from my fingers by little kids… but I'm cool with that. It's fine."

Caesar seemed impressed. "Your attitude is certainly admirable! Does it come from a family member, or is it all your own?"

Jack picked at a loose thread on the arm of his chair. "Mine, I guess. Or maybe it comes from my dad, but I wouldn't know, considering he's off… somewhere. Doing important things." He paused to look up at the closest camera and give a little wave. "Hi, dad. Wherever you are."

The audience cooed over his tragedy for a moment.

"And my mom and I don't really see eye-to-eye all the time. So if anyone has influenced me most, it has to be my best bud Alex." He grinned, eyes lighting up with a familiar laugh-like expression that looked much more natural among his boyish features. "He and I do everything together… hang around, eat food, pull pranks on the stiffs who can't think beyond numbers and facts." He just smiled to himself for a few seconds, clearly reliving happier times in his mind.

"Pranks! Really? Do you have a favorite?"

Long, pale fingers tapped against one jean-clothed knee in thought. "Oh," he finally burst, "there was this one time when me and Alex just hung around the Square all day and played with our invisible rope. All we did all day was squat across from each other in narrow walkways and mime holding the end of a rope tight… It was the most hilarious thing to watch people try and step over it. Or go around it. Or just stop and walk the other way."

The audience hooted and squealed with laughter; their peals of joy were odd sounding and reminded me somehow of a group of exotic birds. The image wasn't pleasant.

"Then there's always the balloon room… we raided the little celebrations store and got as many of those really colorful party balloons as Alex's allowance could pay for. Then we blew them all up—hella headache, seriously—in one of the computer labs down the street. So when the nerds got back to their office the next day it was completely full of balloons."

The empty seat beside me suddenly seemed extremely significant. My heart raced faster as Jack and Caesar continued to banter; my ears seemed to be stuffed with cotton because all I could hear was the quick, dull thumping of my pulse. My fingers wound their way around the seat of my chair and squeezed it as if it were my only anchor to reality. It almost hurt, but kept me grounded.

"…He got out of the hospital the next day, so no serious harm done," Jack was concluding when my focus shifted back to the stage. His buzzer sounded much louder and persistent than any of the others had.

The pinch in my toes and weight on the balls of my feet didn't really register as I floated out of my seat. The pins pressed in to my scalp disappeared, as did the itch of the lace on my bra. The numbness, I decided, was pleasant enough.

I might have shaken Caesar's hand. I might have just taken my seat. I'm not entirely sure. It was his first question that reminded me that I'd have to respond at one point.

"How well do you think you are coping with the preparation for these Games?" Caesar asked my blank features. I forced them around into what I hoped looked thoughtful.

"Well," I started, my voice cracking over the single word. I dug my fingernails into the velvet of the armchair, trying to force feeling back into my fingers. "I would like to think that I'm doing rather well."

"That's good to hear! Do you have anything in particular that's been a help?"

I tried to focus on the host's face instead of the rumbling of anxiety that was slowly blossoming in my gut. "Um," I coughed ungracefully. "Well, it's been nice to use the Training Center. I've learned some really useful things."

"Oh? Like what?" His greenish eyes bore into my skull with such exaggerated interest that I skirmish.

"Um," I started again, mentally kicking myself. "Knots. At home I rarely ever tied knots, working at the hospital."

_This is good_, I reminded myself. _Mundane facts, useless tidbits_.

"So you're a nurse?" His eyebrows raised at my nod. "That will certainly buy you an ally or three!"

The audience found this amusing. I still felt like my heart would give away my nervousness through my uncontrollably shaking hands or quivering ankles. I settled my palms tightly against each other in my lap and raised my chin a few degrees.

"Do you specialize in any one area, or just work generally?" Caesar queried lightly.

"General stuff. I can do most anything."

The host grinned. "Could you take care of a broken leg?"

"Yes," I answered without a moment's hesitation. My thoughts slogged back momentarily to the stuffy sterile operation rooms that most nurses wouldn't step near in Six's eastern hospital. They were always my favorite places because I felt like I was helping with something significant; the other nurses were content with treating runny noses and adhering Band-Aides.

"Could you… set a broken jaw?"

I wondered which Capital TV show he'd watched to pull up this one. Rumor had it the Capital actually enjoyed watching shows about hospitals and doctors. It seemed to fit with the fact that these were the people who enjoyed sending District children into horrid arenas to kill one another…

I had to squeeze my fingers together to stop the shaking. "Yes, I could. I've seen it done many times."

"What's the greatest medical feat you yourself have ever accomplished?"

_Giving birth_ was on the very tip of my tongue, eager to leap off and into the many cameras fixed on me. I had to physically bite my cheek to keep my thoughts in line.

"There was one man," I started quietly, sending my mind to a darker memory that lingered constantly at the back of my brain. "A young man who worked in the factories… The hospital was closing up for the night, and I was putting my coat on and leaving… and I ran into him. In the street." I took a breath, recalling the scene as if the snow-riddled night had been only a few hours ago. "It was wintertime, and icy and bitterly cold and he was yelling. Yelling like he couldn't help it. And as I took a closer look it was clear that his sleeve had gotten caught on a conveyor belt or something and his right hand just wasn't as it should be." A variety of noises slithered from the audience. "So I turned right around and led him back into the hospital, even though all the others had left, and I found some of the old braces and rebroke all five fingers. His hand would grow straight, but the screaming…"

Caesar's smile seemed a little frozen, as though he'd removed himself from his facial features for a few moments. "How brave of you!" he commended suddenly, raising his hands to applaud me. A smattering of clapping sprinkled the audience, but only momentarily. "That must have been an important night in your lifetime… I know it would be in mine!"

As the young man's screams took one last loop around my head, accented by the crunches of his fingers as a younger me tried to fix them, I secretly reveled in the real reason why this certain gruesome night had stuck with me. Because horribly wounded factory men weren't an uncommon case for the hospital—in fact, they made up most of our patients—but that night had been special for me because I had been pregnant for months and Blake had chosen that night to give me a kick. Just a little twitch, as if reminding me he was there. And it had been that December night that I'd decided to keep him-that this little life I was growing wasn't going to end up in the children's home at the edge of the District. He was something special, I'd realized then, and he was _mine_.

My buzzer was a thousand times sweeter than any end-of-day school bell had ever been. I tottered a little once I got to my feet but was otherwise quite graceful on my way back to the wonderful 6F chair. The shade outside of the spotlight was heavenly, and I let my shoulders drop and hands untwine.

My thoughts unwinding, it occurred to me that the boy from my District wouldn't last a full day in the arena. And I was both surprised and disgusted with myself as I accepted this young boy's death as inevitable and maybe even _for the best_. Better for this tiny creature to be snuffed out on the first day than try and survive by himself in an arena full of unknown horrors.

But even my most logical reasoning couldn't erase the guilt that riddled my gut.

My thoughts were glad to embrace the Seven girl as a fighter. Twiggy and post-thin as she was, there was an undefeatable glint to her large brown eyes that seemed to match her personality much more accurately than her body.

"Have you made any friends in the Training Center?" Caesar was asking her politely when my attention snapped back to the stage.

"Not yet," she replied matter-of-factly. "But there's always Birch, and _he_ seems to have picked up someone."

Caeasar chuckled. "Is that so? Alright, but if you had to choose any one of these tributes to ally with, who would it be?"

She bit the nail on her pinky finger for a moment, gaze fetching up to the rigging above the stage. "Well, I'd have to think about it, ya'know? Process of elimination. Let me demonstrate." She sat rod-straight in her chair, facing the row of tributes below her like a shrunken general before her troops. "Wonder seems a good bet because she's strong and fast and knows what she's doing. But she doesn't seem like she's one to be one hundred percent loyal and honestly I wouldn't put it past her to decapitate me in the night." Some of the audience chuckled and the Seven girl shrugged. "Just sayin'. Then there's the One guy who I think is super creepy and looks like he wouldn't have a problem killing just about anybody, friend or foe. So he's out. The Two girl is way too smart for me, probably would leave me behind in some thicket of bushes and map herself out or something… the Three girl seems nice enough, but I can't support a tag-a-long… same goes for the Three guy. Umm…" She paused to let her gaze roam over the tributes and get her thoughts into line. "Taia is also sort of creepy and I don't know if I'd be able to recover from seeing that tiny thing murder someone. I'd rather not be in therapy for the rest of my life. The Four guy is pretty and talented, which is entirely too perfect and not a match for me at all. Five girl needs someone to hold her hand through the entire thing… but I think Jack has potential. I mean, any Five who can huck an ax like he can is worth considering. He's also cute." She took a second to clear her throat before continuing to rattle off her evaluations. "Six girl is really pretty but seems like she could get fierce, ya'know, and doesn't seem to like playing the victim. Six guy, though, I'm not sure I could keep in line enough to keep us both alive. Umm… Birch, of course, seems like a safe bet even though he has confidence issues or something… Eight girl, I like. I'm not sure exactly why, but I do."

The screens framing the stage filled with the rosy blush of the Eight girl, who seemed both pleased at embarrassed simultaneously.

But the Seven girl wasn't done with her rapid-fire. "Eight guy is too nice; he might drive me a little insane. Nine girl has potential of being a great follower, wood-fetcher sort of ally; Nine guy is just a jerk. Like, king jerk. Ten girl might die after running a mile; Ten guy would be too easy to fight with all the time. Eleven girl seems like her most attractive attribute was her awesome mentor… same goes for Eleven guy, though he looks like he could handle himself a little better. Twelve girl looks like the Five girl could be an excellent match, and I haven't really seen much of the Twelve guy so I can't tell. But unless we're launched straight into a coal mine, I doubt he'd be my first pick." She took a huge breath and let it out through a satisfied smile.

"Wow!" Caesar hooted. "You're an observant one, aren't you? Would you say—"

But just then her buzzer sounded and she was back on her toothpick legs and marching back to her chair. I noticed how the other tributes eyed her with a different respect than she'd commanded before.

My mind took a trip for the duration of the Seven guy's interview. Which I realized later wasn't very smart, considering how much attention he snagged with those three measly minutes. It seemed that as he took his seat again, every single audience member was either his biggest fan or considered him scum. It was a strange reaction that made me wish my space-out hadn't been so timely.

So I did my best to pay attention to the Eight girl's interview, but she just seemed painfully uneventful. Safe, yes, and generally liked, sure. But astoundingly unique? In appearance, definitely. But not really in personality or background, from what she let slip on national TV.

In contrast, I'd never seen anyone like the Eight boy. He had my attention at his command throughout the whole interview, with the simplest of comments. So it wasn't until the very end of his interview that I wanted to strangle him.

"I know you can't exactly give us a blow-by-blow as Ayla did, considering how much time we have left, but do you think there are any tribute this year that you'd especially want to ally with?"

"Well," he thought lightly, long fingers dancing on the arms of his chair. "Melanie and I are already set, we figured that out a while ago… and there are a lot of really interesting kids here! I guess Wonder, because she's both pretty and strong and stuff… And Olivia, too. I mean, it takes a lot to raise a baby! Not just anyone can do that, and I really admire her."

A silence had fallen on the audience and the stage. The screens bloomed with my own pale face as ice caved my chest in. He didn't. He couldn't have! He wouldn't…. what had I ever done to him? Had I said something insulting? Had I… used a word? A phrase? What could I have possibly done to bring this on?

My baby. My Blake, the center of my world… and now the entire nation knew about him. I was going to go into these Games as Via the fighter, but now I was branded as Via the mother. The slut. The girl who slept with her best friend when she was barely sixteen…

In a way, I felt like my Games were over. But that was only momentary. What stuck with me was the feeling that now I had to fight twice as hard. Starting with this idiot who exposed my son to the world.

* * *

><p><strong>This, in case you were wondering, is the longest HG chapter I've ever written. It was over 8,000 words... I think second place goes to "Side Effects," chapter 18 in LYGB. Factoid of the day.<strong>

We're launching next chapter! Bring on the arena! AND the reviews. Pretty, pretty, pretty please. A little generosity is never unrewarded. Karma's watching!

Also,** take some time day to smile**. Really. It's amazing what one little smile can do to someone's day.

**It's your turn. Good luck.  
>Topsy <strong>


	11. Gunmetal Grey

**Well, well. Go on, skip this tragic monstrosity of an A/N and get right to the story. It's Ayla, from Seven, in case you were wondering.**

_For those of you who have an extra moment, or who think you care... I'm alive. And I'm sorry. To me, when an author begins a story and knows that there are people out there who would even kind of like to read it, she has a commitment to said readers to produce material. Any material. Or maybe, at least let her readers (I flatter myself with the plural there) know ahead of time that she plans on dropping them off at the nearest trash collecting corner and continuing on her merry way._  
><em>So I feel badly. First, because I did just sort of wave my $11 plastic Harry Potter wand (light-up tip) and tell myself, forget about it! It doesn't matter! Which of course it doesn't. It's just a Fic. There's certainly no gravity to it; I think there's upwards of, what, 10,000 HG Fics on here? I would not be missed.<em>  
><em>And secondly, because I most definitely did not continue on my merry way. And over the past two (or three?) months, I have successfully failed as a friend to someone I love, as an actress with callbacks from only three of eight auditions and no roles to boot, as a musician who is now banned from the subway, and as a girlfriend to someone who was right to leave (but I'll still miss them).<em>

_And so I'm back to writing. Give me a chance to get my rhythm back- my poor but wonderfully forgiving beta, Writting2StayHalfSane, somehow shaped this up into something legible for your reading pleasure. Thank her if you feel like thanking me; she deserves it._

* * *

><p>Black underwear and bra. Black tank top. Long, thick denim jeans. Black socks in shiny black combat boots lined with the pelt of some black animal. A leather jacket the exact shade of the weathered bark on a dogwood in the winter, complete with cotton hood. And a black cord about eight inches long to pull back your hair.<p>

I gave our arena outfit a solid six out of ten. Because it was quite stylish, really, and somehow flattered me just as much as it flattered my beefy District partner. Well, maybe not just as much, but we were sort of in the same league now. There was something distinctly sexy and mysterious about this get-up; the Capitol was clearly shooting for a better visual experience with these Games.

But pacing around my launch room, I couldn't help my annoyance with the clothes. The leather would get stiff and itchy if it got wet, so maybe we were going somewhere where it didn't rain. But that didn't explain the heaviness of our jeans or the apparent waterproofing on our boots. Screw fashion; I wanted a fleece and some nice stretchy sweats.

I let out a frustrated groan as I assessed my reflection for the fiftieth time. Hair up, hair down, coat on, coat off, jeans tucked into the boots or hiding them. Stupid, useless decisions that I'd been trying to get my brain busy with for the past hour.

"Cold nights, I think," my soft-spoken stylist piped up from the corner of the shadowy room.

"Ya think," I murmured under my breath, eyeing myself in a feeble attempt to get my mind to focus on one thing. But of course it wouldn't; it was much happier wheeling around in chaotic circles, grabbing on every fear and matching it to some horrific arena. An icy wasteland, maybe. Maybe they purposefully planted us in leather to make sure we'd be in stiff, unyielding clothing for the entire frozen time. Sounds like a Capitol thing to do…

Birch sat on a steel bench off to the side, watching his own hands as if they held the meaning to life. His weird reddish hair fell over his gaze and his shoulders sloped forward against their leather restraints. The cord was tied around one wrist, his jeans tucked into the mouths of his boots. It occurred to me suddenly, as my pulse raced and thoughts spiraled, that this was probably the last time I'd ever see the redhead. I mean, not that I would miss him terribly (okay, maybe a little), but there was something unifying that sort of came with being on the same train to hell. We were both from Seven, we both had family, we probably both have friends, and we were both about to kill other kids before dying bloody deaths.

Life really sucks sometimes, I guess. But being this close to death sucks a lot more.

"Chin up, ginger," I called over to him half-heartedly. My voice wavered a bit, giving away how fast my heart was racing against my ribs. I checked my reflection out of the corner of my eye to make sure its throbbing wasn't visible through the skin-tight tank.

Birch didn't even flinch. It was as if he was in his own little world. Which was understandable; I guess some people tune out under stress. My friends tell me I get jumpy when I'm freaked out, but I've never noticed.

The door to our launch room cracked open, sending me lurching about a mile and planting new thoughts of an arena based completely on horrifying sounds in my spinning head.

Birch's stylist poked her head in with an almost apologetic air. "Birch," she said quietly. No reaction from the stony wonder. "We have to go to our launch now. It's time to send you guys off."

She had really blue eyes, like the shade I'd always kind of wanted. 'Cause blue eyes are pretty and striking. Everyone else has brown eyes and they suck. But her blue eyes were different, in the half-ass light of our tiny room. I realized through my jitters that she was looking at me as if I were already murdered… like I was some sort of tragedy. I think they even glistened a little.

I tugged my jacket on, trying once again to focus on the tiny detail of the oiled leather sliding over my goose-bump riddled skin. Birch stood up at the same moment, eyes vacant and staring as he offered me a completely false grin.

"So long," I coughed. "Um. I hope things… go well."

"You too. See ya, kiddo."

And he was gone. Swept stiffly from the room.

And suddenly it was just my stylist and I and the three bare light bulbs that were still trying to fight off the shadows. It was a loosing war, but I admired them for attempting all the same.

"Are you… ready?" he asked me uncertainly. My stylist, not the bulbs.

"Yeah," I breathed, straightening my spine and puffing out my chest as much as I dared. Not to look cocky or anything, but I just couldn't walk into that glass tube thing all slouched over and hopeless. If I had to be thrust forcefully into this place, I was going to look darn good while doing it. Like these actually _were_ my terms or something.

The metal disc that my stylist shepherded me onto was precisely 18 inches across. The sign next to the launch tube told us so. It also told my stylist which buttons on the fancy control pad to push to send me into the arena. Which was pretty stupid, really, because there were only three: "close," "launch," and a much smaller red button tucked away to the side labeled with "emergency."

No "open." No "pause." No "escape." I couldn't help feeling like I was really past the point of no return on that 18-inch plate. But the toes of my boots were shinier than the steely glow of the disc, and I was somehow still breathing. So I guess I had as good a shot at this as any of the other kids.

My stylist had nothing to say to me as the glass tube slid shut. So I didn't take any words of encouragement or support with me when I was shot upwards. I tucked my arms against my sides to make sure my jacket didn't catch against the rapidly moving walls, and tilted my chin upwards as if I could better spot my destination. I couldn't, of course. I couldn't see the opening until it split, two seconds before I shot through it.

It was early morning. That much was very obvious in the very first millisecond of my existence in that god-forsaken place—the light was young and pastel-y, much colder and lifeless than Seven's but the same shade.

_Don't step off. Don't step off. Don't step off._

I locked my knees subconsciously in an attempt to make my legs be still, but my ankles still quivered slightly in my boots. Because I couldn't see a single plant—not one—in the entire area around me. My pulse throbbed against my ears as I tried to take in every detail of my surroundings at once, overwhelming my thoughts and processing system at the same time. But the main concept of the place got through: we were in a city. A concrete mess of skyscrapers and little shops and streets and sidewalks. The Cornucopia glinted in the light, grabbing my eye easily in the mess of neutral greys and browns. It was perched on a nest of rubble; old bricks, twisted and gnarled metal, and hunks of concrete lifted the giant golden thing almost a foot off the ground.

And, in the last few seconds when my thoughts still sort of made sense, I saw that our circle of evenly spaced plates was situated in what appeared to be the main square of the city, with streets stretching off behind us in every direction and buildings casting us into a cold shade.

My breath drifted up before my face in little clouds of panic as I scanned the tributes nearest to me. Neither were Birch, which made my heart sink the tiniest bit, nor were they Jack, which didn't help my sinking spirits either. I wished suddenly that I'd taken the time to establish alliances back when the world was somewhat sane. Then at least I'd have something to run to besides the promising black canvas rucksacks scattered around the Cornu.

Claudius Templesmith's voice crackled over the sky as my eyes caught one last thing: a dully gleaming gun nestled in the shadows of the inner Cornucopia, at least four feet into the thing. The weapon had Career written all over it.

_Maybe it's not loaded_, I tried to comfort myself as my heart kicked into hyper gear. _Maybe the bullets are hidden separately. If there are bullets at all_. But I couldn't fully convince myself of that.

"_Let the two hundred sixty-third Hunger Games… begin!_"

And my feet were charging forward with my brain still glued to the plate. I sprinted faster than I could ever remember sprinting before, even with the heavy boots weighing me down. My knuckles grazed the concrete as I dove for a knife lying innocently on the ground about fifteen feet away from the mouth of the giant thing; I tripped over the clonky toe and stumbled two steps forward into a boy who must have been two feet taller than me. His reflexes beat my wheeling thoughts; a solid elbow smashed into my jaw with the force of ten times the adrenaline in my system. Eyes popping, I tripped backwards and put all my energy into lining my brain up. _Get a pack_, I pleaded with myself. _You're screwed without a pack. Get a pack, get a pack, get a pack…_

The mess around me was two parts panic and one part blood, from what I could comprehend. There was a girl on the pavement with blood streaming from the edges of her still-staring eyes; it was her legs that tripped me and caught my attention in the first place. Me being me, of course, I took far too many milliseconds to stop and stare at the blatant death lying before me. Staring at me. Asking me if I was coming or not.

And then there was a massive hand around my arm and I was sure someone was trying to yank it out of its socket. I was pulled off my feet and into the air in a stupid little hop before my knees collided roughly with the cement and I felt my shoulder pop under the sudden yank the rest of my body supplied. I made some sort of yelp, or cursed, or screamed, or something as I was set back vertical and dragged off in the opposite direction of the Cornu. Still positive of my rapidly approaching death, I wished very suddenly for an ax to hack my attacker's vise-like arm off. I might have been the best fighter in the world or some nobody from Seven in that moment; all that I could think to do was kick and claw at the guy, biting where I could reach and digging my nails into what little skin I could find. Only at the very back of my brain was I aware of how much my jaw still hurt and how the cold was raking my lungs. That didn't matter right then.

My voice came before my mind was ready for it. "_Lemmego!_" I slurred in a screech of desperation. "I'll killoo! I'll—"

"Shut up. Right now." The growl came from somewhere under his hood. He yanked me harshly upwards as I tried to lock my legs and dig my heels into the pavement. I didn't mean to squeak pathetically.

"No! Let go of me! He—_Help!_"

My throbbing face was brought to the very forefront of my attention as my attacker's other hand suddenly clamped down over my nose and mouth; he had me suddenly trapped between his arms and heaving chest, pressed against warm leather and slightly minty breath. My struggle stopped as quickly as if someone had just tripped over my power cord and pulled it suddenly from the wall.

"If I let you go, will you be quiet?"

He must have felt my attempt to nod against his palm, because he thrust me away from him as if I had head lice. Or termites.

We'd ended up in a damp, three-sided alleyway lined with tin trash bins and old flyers, none of them legible. As soon as I got my feet underneath me, my first instinct was to run. But another echo from the opposite side of my brain reminded me of how stupid this would be, seeing as I'd managed to lose hold of the knife I'd originally grabbed and now had nothing. Besides, I tried to reason, it's been at least thirty seconds and he hasn't tried to kill me yet.

My voice beat my thoughts once more. "You going to kill me?"

His back was to me, his frame between me and the open end of the alley. There was a quietness about him that made me think he was listening for something, but all I could hear around my still-erotic pulse were the noises of struggle and pain from the Cornu right around the block. The cold in the air bit at my exposed skin, heightening my nerves.

"Not anytime soon," he answered simply, seeming to have caught his breath. His face tilted toward the light, throwing his profile into sharp relief. He took a breath that drifted away from his mouth in a slowly melting cloud of steam.

"Then you want to ally with me?" I demanded, pleased to hear a subtle strength to my voice.

His silence did nothing for my jumping, impatient nerves. "Hey!" I suddenly yelled—his entire body jolted as he swung back at me aggressively. Now that I saw him up close, however, I could tell that he wasn't actually all that huge. Skinny, even, but just tall enough to seem imposing when he slammed into me and shushed harshly in my face.

"Do you feel like getting killed on the very first day?" he hissed, suddenly urgent.

"No. So I'm leaving."

With my shoulders squared and breath somewhat contained in my lungs, I made to slip past him and out into the street. His arm snapped out and caught me across the chest, jarring my smaller frame and slamming harshly into the thin layer of soft tissue there. In a knee-jerk reaction, I shoved him away from me, disgusted.

"Who are you?" I demanded, glad to hear that authority had found its way back to my voice.

"No one," he coughed back, still blocking my exit. He massaged his shoulder idly, hood facing me but back-lit so his features fell to shadow.

"Tell me where you're from," I commanded coolly on a breath of icy air, "or I'll scream."

"I can prevent that, deary," he responded softly. I noticed his accent then for the first time. Harsh, rolling R's, soft vowels.

"I'm from District Seven," I puffed, the words floating idly away on the still air.

"I know."

"And you're…?"

"Would this make you feel any better?" He reached over his back, as if for a weapon, and every muscle in my body tensed for attack, thrilling on a leftover edge of adrenaline for one last zing.

But instead of a sword, or a mace, he swung down a pack. And just let it sit on the ground between us, limp on the concrete.

"We can share it, if you'll agree to ally with me," he offered. The accent was definitely there this time.

I set my jaw, knowing that I was a foot shorter than him and probably didn't appear intimidating at all, but not giving up on the image in my head. "Not until you tell me who you are."

He sighed, creating a cloud of resignation that floated out from beneath his hood. "District Twelve," he said softly after a cold moment. "My name is Benjamin."

My mind struggled to match the imposing silhouette before me to the quivering kid from the coal district. But after I got over the fact that this kid was scary, and that one had been wimpy, and this one had authority and that one looked on the edge of tears… the physical shape of the boy from the reapings and the boy before me slowly matched up, like two slides on a lightbox.

"Benjamin," I said slowly, squinting slightly at the shadows beneath his hood. "Right. Well, off with the disguise then."

"Will you ally with me?"

But this was different—his commanding tone had fled for a quieter voice that exposed the slightest hint of desperation. It was almost… pleading.

"Why do you want me?" I finally asked, after his question had drifted up the brick walls that encased us.

"I saw you in the Training Center; you're a lot tougher than you look," he bumbled, façade cracking as he leaned more heavily on his dialect. "You're a lot skinnier than the other girls, and you look about thirteen, but you're sixteen right?"

I nodded slowly.

"There's an ax in there," he added quietly, kicking the pack between us with the toe of his boot. "It's hella heavy and it feels like the right shape. It's yours if you promise not to kill me with it."

An ax. There had to be only one in the entire Gamemakers didn't just supply such specialty weapons by the dozens. This would probably be my only chance to get my hands on one. And once I did, a broken promise would be worth another dead tribute, plus I'd have whatever other supplies hid in the canvas all to myself.

"And what can you do?" I found myself asking before I'd decided to say it out loud.

"Nothing."

The simple word hung for a moment on the industrial stench between us.

That settled it. There was no way I could ally with him; he would only drag me down and probably get me killed. If he was loud, he could attract Careers, and there are better ways to be killed than having my limbs sliced off by that One guy, or being burned alive in a net somewhere—

"Alright." I stuck out my hand, thoughts blasted to the outermost edges of my brain. _This is a terrible idea_.

He hesitated for half a second before extending a deathly pale hand and fitting it into mine for a respectable handshake.

It could have been an echo from the action at the Cornu, or a scuff from something inside the buildings around us, but I could have sworn he said something then, very quietly.

"Thank you."

And then he slid off his hood.

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><p><strong>Do you hear that? That disgusting flushing noise? It's my plan for 6,000-word chapters. This one, and the next (already written, up tomorrow or Wednesday depending on beta dearest) are barely over 3,000. Le sigh.<strong>

**So review. I know it's unfair of me to ask for instant gratification when I clearly have not been dishing it out, but... Today is actually my birthday (really), and a birthday present in review form would be much appreciated.**

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy <strong>


	12. Twisted

**What's this? Two updates in one week and the promise of another this weekend? What is this world coming to?**

Exciting news of the day is I finally got a new laptop! This one's all fancy and even has letters on its keys (not worn off, and with a full alphabet. The poor Mac I wrote LYGB on had no B so it took three tries every time to type "by")! Insert Snoopy dance here... And I now have a huge, almost completely empty file in my Documents labeled "Among the Damned." And I thoroughly plan on filling it.

I don't know if I have any horse people readers, but I'd say using a new computer is a lot like riding a new horse. At first you're super frustrated that it refuses to respond in exactly the same way, but slowly you figure out what makes it tick, what it likes, what it hates, how to hold your wrists, how best to communicate, etc. I'm in a metaphorical mood.

As always, a huge thank you goes out to **Writting2StayHalfSane**, my super-fantabulous beta reader. Who I adore and couldn't live (or at least write) without.  
><strong>This chapter is Scrim, the last of the focus tributes that you haven't yet seen. I like this one.<strong>

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><p>"You're quite impatient… did you know that?"<p>

"I'm not impatient! I just… Need to be doing something, you know, all this sitting just… creeps me out…"

My District partner took one last huff of irritated air and plopped grandly down on a bench that looked about ready to collapse in a stiff wind. It whined noisily as she leaned against the back.

"I don't like this arena, Scrim," she said thoughtfully after a moment.

I ran my tongue over the front of my teeth, momentarily enjoying the tang of Capitol mint toothpaste. "We could be in the arctic right now," I offered lightly. "Or in the middle of a desert. All things considered, I think this is a pretty nice place." I glanced idly around the bakery we'd finally decided to crash in—or at least I thought it was a bakery. The front of the small shop had glass windows that had since been shattered, plastered over and vandalized. Hanging over the sidewalk outside the single-hinged door was a sweet wooden sign with a carving of warm bread. Melanie had said the simple image was more like a burning pig, but I liked my idea better.

And the floor was much nicer than the other shops we'd ducked into on our walk from the main square. Most of them were bare concrete, or cracked open like an egg to reveal the building's foundation underneath, but our place had nice, only slightly splintered hardwood.

And curtains. Lovely little green curtains, still dangling from the tormented rods.

Melanie caught the line of my gaze and got heavily to her feet. "At least in the desert we'd have a mission to get water… or in the arctic, I'd be trying to make a fire right now."

"You can still make a fire if you want," I pointed out, watching my breath drift up to the raw ceiling.

She sighed at me in a mix of exasperation and sympathy. "We're in a wooden building, Scrim."

She talked to me like I was a young child sometimes; it was something she'd picked up in the Training Center and hadn't shaken since. I didn't particularly mind it most of the time, seeing as she was so far an excellent ally and a really nice person. It was actually kind of sweet, as long as it didn't mess up the balance of our partnership.

"Right." I stretched my arms out over my head with a huge yawn, annoyed at how the leather of my jacket tried to restrain the motion. "Well there's probably a fire place around here somewhere. Shall we have a look?"

Melanie hesitated a moment before shouldering our sole pack and extending a hand to help me to my feet.

What had immediately struck me about this city wasn't the fact that it looked like it had been abandoned for a hundred years, but rather that it didn't seem like it could decide which century it wanted to exist in. I'd watched the skyscrapers surrounding the Cornucopia slowly taper off into modest two-story buildings as we had made our way from the square. The once-shiny new technology stood side by side with shops like this one, made entirely from wood and with display cases that looked hand-crafted and never fitted for light bulbs. But just across the street was a spiffy white clothing boutique, whose graffiti and broken windows couldn't hide the fact that it would look right at home along Main Street back home.

Slick, black asphalt streets ran into cobblestones that met at roundabouts with country dirt lanes lined with wooden walkways; then you'd turn a corner and be on an uneven brick lane winding in narrow currents between tall, foreign buildings strung together by laundry lines. Some of the buildings had no right angles; others seemed to have their skeletons on their outsides. We'd even passed what looked like a cottage straight out of one of our history books, thatched roof and all.

But every piece of the city shared the same monochromatic theme, slurred together under a thin layer of ruin and abuse. Despite its quirks, it was a sad place… it gave me the distinct feeling of a home that had just been deserted very suddenly one day, as if every citizen had just put down what they were doing and disappeared.

"Alright, watch your step. We don't know how strong these floors are," Melanie warned absent-mindedly as she lightly tread through the narrow doorway behind the shop's counter. Tatters of a cotton curtain hung limply in the empty door frame. My ally was short enough not to notice them, but I had to brush them aside to pass.

Even if the floorboards had been made of spider's web, I don't think Melanie needed to worry about falling through. She had a pretty, flowing way of moving that barely seemed to register on the ancient wood beneath her boots. In fact, the only noises in the painfully narrow hallway were that of my own shoes clashing against the floor.

I'd never really liked wearing shoes.

"This looks like an… office?" she mused quietly to herself, peering into one of the rooms splitting off from the hall. The quiet of the building would have been calming if I'd known the place; in the moment it just seemed distinctly _sad_. Black and white portraits of people in odd clothing decorated the peeling walls, hanging at awkward angles off bare nails. I took a moment to adjust one to hang straight again.

It took Melanie a second to notice I'd stopped. "Scrim?"

"Look at these people. Do you think they were real?"

I caught her fair brow crumple slightly out of the corner of my eye. "Real?"

"I mean, the Capitol could have just conjured up these pictures. They probably have some artist for making artifacts."

The rough wooden frame hosted the torsos and heads of two people; a man and a woman, judging by his broader shoulders and her tiny waist. One of her thin arms was draped around the back of his neck, and one of his rested on her side. But their faces were gone—scratched out by a fingernail or perhaps a shard of the glass that used to protect the photo.

Would they have been smiling? Were they a married couple, perhaps, newly wed and in love? Or maybe this was a portrait of a father and a daughter… Maybe they'd run this shop, a million years ago. Maybe Melanie and I were intruding in their place of business. Maybe this shop had been their livelihood. Maybe it had been passed down, father to son (or daughter) for generations, carefully taken care of by each owner with the knowledge that it would one day belong to their offspring…

"Of course they're fake," Melanie said gently, reaching for my hand but taking my wrist instead. "I don't think they even had cameras back then."

"Right." With one last glance at the bleached couple, I yielded to my ally's gentle tug and continued down the hall.

On our tour of the petite two-story building, we passed a large kitchen, what we thought was a bathroom, another study, a questionable spiral staircase leading to a row of tiny bedrooms, and a once-cozy living room with a gaping hole in the wall that we concluded had once been a grand window overlooking the street below.

"What I don't understand," Melanie piped up thoughtfully around her bite of jerky from the bottom of the pack, "is the point of having weapons at the Cornucopia at all. In this arena, I mean." She only occupied a quarter of the old couch she'd curled up on, her legs tucking neatly beneath her to fit nicely onto one cushion.

"What do you mean?" I asked lightly, barely catching the pack of jerky.

"Well," she swallowed, "if every building in this city is like this one, and looks like its owner just decided to randomly move out, then wouldn't the butcher's shop have all those massive knives just sitting around?"

She had a point. Even in this ancient little bakery, the kitchen had been lightly decorated with wooden spoons, rusted pots and books of rotting recipes. The desk in the office had a collection of feathers and little pots of ink, as well as many yellowed and wrinkled papers. Things like the rugs and blinds were removed, and many of the objects in the place were overturned and picked over, as if it had been looted, but the Capitol certainly didn't leave us empty-handed in the potential weapon department.

"Yeah, I guess so," I muttered, watching my fingers pick at the fraying floral silk covering the armchair I lounged on.

"Aren't you worried? I mean, what if the Careers find the butcher's first? Or maybe there's an armory around here? A blacksmith? A firearms shop?"

I glanced up, concerned by her frightened tone. "We can worry all we want. It's not going to help us much." The chair looked as if it had once been beautiful, sort of like an elderly woman who had once been the jewel of the town. Tattered, worn down, but still clearly pretty. "And besides, I think we're pretty darn set just the way we are." I tore off a bite of jerky with my best grin, and was rewarded with a small smile from her.

"Yup, in the middle of a sketchy city arena, with no idea where any other tributes are, with only one pack of jerky and some trail mix to last us for who knows how long." Her sarcasm was clear, but I liked that she was smiling.

"But we're alive!" I got to my feet and bounced over to her couch. "And we each have an ally." I flopped grandly onto the cushion next to her, grabbing one of her ankles and drawing it across my lap, spurred by her childlike giggles. "And neither one of us are mortally wounded or ill."

"I don't know, Scrim, I twisted my ankle pretty badly getting us that jerky," she responded, trying not to smile as I caught her other leg and pulled it to rest by its partner.

"Which one was that again?"

All joking aside, I couldn't pretend I wasn't slightly concerned with her. Though the first few moments of the Games were still a blur to my groggy mind, I could distinctly remember drawing away from the chaos of tributes and being grabbed roughly by the arm. I'd swung around, not ready to hurt anyone but needing to face my attacker, and it'd somehow been my ally. With a pack. And a slight limp. We'd run in the opposite direction of another pack of tributes until the Cornucopia sounds were reassuringly faint. Then it had just been a matter of terribly slow time until we'd found this place. She'd been walking fine in the back half of the trip, but I could tell it still hurt her.

"My left," she informed me, watching the sky outside of the window darken.

I picked at the laces on that boot, then with her nod of reassurance slid it off. "You have tiny feet," I commented quietly.

"I know."

I peeled off her black sock and dropped it into the open mouth of her boot on the ground. The stink of sweaty feet wafted up to greet me, curling her lips into an apologetic smile, but I didn't mind. It wasn't as if I hadn't smelled dirty feet before.

"Here?" I prodded the outside of her ankle gingerly, rubbing the inside with my other thumb.

She winced. "Yeah."

We sat in silence for a few moments as the light in the room continued to gradually dim. Then she sighed.

"Do you really think we actually stand a chance in this arena, Scrim?"

I grinned at her, continuing to message her cold skin. "I think so. Why wouldn't we?"

"We're from Eight. Neither of us knows anything about weapons, or fighting, and I'm not entirely sure I could kill another kid."

"You don't have to, silly. At least for the time being, I don't think you're going to have to be killing anyone."

"Right," she breathed absentmindedly. There was another quiet moment before she took another breath and dropped her forehead unexpectedly on my shoulder.

"You have friends at home, right?" she asked my elbow."

"Yeah."

"And you miss them?"

"Of course."

"Well how are you going to… deal… with never seeing them again?"

I leaned my cheek against the top of her head, grateful for the human contact. One of the things I'd feared most coming into these Games was the idea that I would be trekking through an unknown arena all by myself, without any supplies or another person to keep me company. It'd been that thought that worried me most, not the fact that I could die at any moment, or that I was in a completely unpredictable environment with kids that wanted to kill me. I just couldn't bear being alone.

Luckily I didn't have to.

"Is this the sort of thing you've been thinking about? Never seeing your friends again?"

She hesitated, then nodded against the leather of my jacket.

"That's no way to make it in here. Jerky?"

"We need to save that, Scrim. We don't know how long it's going to last us."

"Right."

And oddly, in that moment I was quite sure that the small boyish girl who leaned against my shoulder and was draped across my lap was my friend. Not in the exact same way that people back in Eight were my friends, but she definitely fell into the category.

My thumb explored the groove around the bone in her ankle. "Melanie?"

She hummed sleepily.

"Would you consider me your friend?"

Another moment of hesitation. My heart sank the tiniest bit.

"Of course, Scrim. We need all the friends we can get in here."

She couldn't see, but I was grinning. Just happy not to be alone.

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><p><strong>If you would review, I would be happy. Though the last chapter was a total wake-up call to me as to how review-spoiled I am... Me, so used to ten reviews per chapter and suddenly getting two. While any other of my stories might get one review a month. Or year.<strong>

While I earn back the trust (and Story Alerts) of my other once-readers (and maybe they are reading but are too fed up to review...), please do drop a comment. And if you have nothing to say about Scrim, or Melanie, then at least tell me that doorframe is one word. Or two. Word says it's one, Google Docs says it's two; my instinct is to follow Word like a fangirl, but what thinks you?

And is the format of this chapter mucho screwed up or is it just me?

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy<strong>


	13. Sampson

**Filler chapter, filler chapter... elevator music... filler chapter. With le Wonder.**

It is technically still this weekend, just sayin'. I'm an idiot and thought I sent this to the beta on Friday, but actually sent it this weekend... she's amazing. And I still want to spell "gray" as "grey". And I shall from now on. I feel British.

Monday update: Thanks to misticalcookie for betaing my beta'd chapter. Silly Oscar/Robert Downey Jr.- struck me. Here it is, hopefully all better.

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><p>"Look, look, look!"<p>

"What?"

"Come here! Come on… _look!"  
><em>  
>Router grumbled under his breath as he straightened up and squinted over at where Slink was screaming his head off. "What is it?"<p>

The two boys were far enough away from each other that they needed to yell across the square to be heard; I was willing to bet that our group was the only one that would ever yell in this arena. Their voices echoed and ricocheted off the buildings that towered over us, amplifying and repeating themselves. If I hadn't been with the five best fighters in the Games, and I wasn't quite confident that no one would ever try and attack us as all together, then I would have been using the bow I just picked up to shoot Slink's face and telling the others to not be so loud.

But I _was_ rummaging in the same square as the kids that were most feared by everyone else. And I wasn't shooting Slink. Fantasizing about it, yes, but the bow in my hands remained quite still. I tucked it under my arm with a bat I'd picked up from behind the Cornu, and continued picking through the bodies and supplies.  
>It hadn't taken us long to take care of the few tributes that had stumbled most unfortunately into our ranks—within the first few seconds of the Games I'd taken down a small boy myself, and Slink had grabbed hold of two. Mia had been the fastest to reach the Cornu, and I had to applaud her quick work of scattering the other sprinters. Then it had just been a matter of killing the weak ones.<p>

And killing wasn't what I thought it would be. I thought I would have to consciously refocus myself, remind myself of the purpose behind my actions. But in the craze of the bloodbath, my brain didn't even register my motions as murder at all. A mace swung into the back of a small boy's head was just a swing of the arm. A knife into a skinny girl's back was an easy throw. Inhale as I plucked the knife from her, exhale as it found a new mark. It was like a dance; my actions balanced with the thick resistance of tribute's bodies. I don't even know what my mind was doing in those minutes. Probably nothing at all.

It could have taken hours or seconds, but eventually the mass craze of tributes had dissolved out into my alliance and the kids on the concrete. The former being high on adrenaline, the latter dead or very close to it.

Eight dead. One-third of the tributes that had entered this arena were so swiftly ridded of it, sixteen were left alive and roaming the city, and six of those were picking over the aftermath of the morning's events.

And one was still yelling. "Come here! Seriously, this is important!"

"Find another token? I have a rather stunning bracelet collection going on over here," Sebastian called lazily from the eastern corner of the square. His white-blond hair stood out against the grays and browns of the battlefield like a firework in a movie theater.

"All right, what is it?" Router drawled, picking his way to the mouth of the giant golden horn. Taia, I noticed, had also made her way to the One boy's side.

They were quiet for a few moments. Then Router yelled.

"No _way!_No fucking way… it's not loaded, right?"

Loaded? I jogged over, skipping around a small girl's body and almost tripping over one of the Elevens.

But I stopped as soon as I saw what Slink was fiddling with. A gun. Not a very big one, but that could be all the more dangerous; a gun that one could conceal easily had infinitely more possibilities than a rifle that was as long as the holder's torso.

Slink rearranged it in his grip, testing out its weight, lining his fingers up with the trigger, experimenting with the safety lock. "I dunno… Do I look like a gun expert?"  
>Sebastian reached for it, but Router snatched it before the blond got a chance. The Two boy sighed heavily and popped a few easy latches with swift, practiced movements. We'd formed a semi-circle around the weapon, drawn to it like moths to a lantern, yet giving it a bubble of respectful space. Sort of like how people admire guard dogs, but don't want to get too close.<p>

"Empty," Router murmured, popping the chamber back into place. He passed it on to Mia resignedly.

The weapon looked decidedly less at home in her slim grasp, its bulk and simplistic build clashing with her thin, wiry fingers. Yet she handled it in the same way Router had, as if she's spent her whole life around the things. Probably because she had.

"I don't even recognize it," she muttered to Router, who continued to watch the weapon with a steady, intense gaze.

"Neither do I. It's not from Three, and it's definitely not a Peacekeeper pistol."

With a couple of quick flicks and adjustments that my eyes failed to completely understand, Mia pulled the butt of the gun completely off and proceeded to empty it of all its internal pieces. She dropped down to sit cross-legged on the cold concrete, laying the pieces out in front of her.

"This has to be the first time a gun has ever been in the arena," Slink piped up after a moment of us all watching Mia rearrange the parts.

"It is," I confirmed, feeling inferior in the face of a weapon that I had absolutely no knowledge about. Any other killing device, be it agriculture-based, combat-rooted or even Peacekeeper-inspired, I at least knew how to operate it. But guns… there had never been one in the arena. Never. The Gamemakers, we'd figured at the Training Center back home, knew that a bullet to the head was a decidedly less entertaining death than a sword through the gut. And it was an unfair advantage to the owner of the weapon, as soon as they figured out how to use it.

So knowing that we'd never encounter a gun in the arena kept the dangerous things out of our training program. There was no point in learning to operate a weapon that, to One, was just a Peacekeeper item.

But of course the Twos knew what the metal creature was all about—they lived in an entire District of Peacekeepers and warriors. Guns were probably normal household items to them.

I wasn't exactly _jealous_of the pierced boy and bony girl. But I definitely did not enjoy standing outside of the loop on a major piece of power.

Taia split off, clearly bored by the gun display, and continued plucking packs from the concrete and picking over fallen tributes. The image of that tiny girl yanking a knife from a tall boy's back, wiping it on his jeans and pocketing the weapon didn't sit well with me. Then again, the image of that tiny girl in a leather jacket didn't sit well with me. The arena outfit aged her and gave her an edge to complement that steely layer to her gaze. If I trusted any of my allies at all, it wasn't her.

"I think we have all we need from here," Slink pointed out around a yawn, echoing my thoughts. "Let's find us a home base and get some chow, eh?"

It was a moment before anyone reacted, but eventually Sebastian fell out of the gun stupor and shouldered a pair of packs, clearly indicating to the other two that it was time to go.

Router got to his feet slowly, still clearly enthralled with the gun, and nudged Mia's side with the toe of his boot. In a matter of seconds, she swept together all the little mechanical pieces into a single weapon again. I don't think anyone else noticed, but she definitely hesitated a second before handing it back to Router. There was something off about the way she watched the metal thing, something greedy. I didn't like it.

Router tucked the weapon into the waist of his jeans, exposing a sliver of tanned abs that I quickly adverted my gaze from and took up the two packs at his feet, clearly ready to move.

It was strange, leaving the main square. I couldn't shake the feeling that we'd missed something important. I felt like we'd won that area, we'd earned the right to everything around the grand Cornucopia, and now we were just… walking away. It certainly said something about the general arrogance of this group. The attitude was definitely that of, "That was easy. Let's do it again."

The buildings grew smaller, the further we wandered. I took it upon myself to lead the group, with Router close at my shoulder. No one objected verbally, but hostile waves rolled off of Taia without even as much as eye contact between us.

"So Wonder," Sebastian piped up, clearly bored of walking in silence and wanting to flaunt the fact that we _could_ talk loudly to one another.

I didn't respond. The Four boy could certainly live out the rest of his questionably long life without taunting me any more than he already had.

"Do you guys just, like, have swimming pools of diamonds in One? Or beauty products made from materials hauled all the way from Twelve?"

There was a smile in his voice, but I didn't turn around to check. And I didn't honor that stereotype with an answer.

Slink did that for me. "What the hell? We're not the Capitol, dumbass."

"Well, _you_certainly wouldn't. Your family is made up of… leather workers?"

"Craftsmen," Slink spat.

"Ah. So they spent all their time around the skin of dead cows. Classy."

"Shut up."

"I wasn't talking to you anyway. I only vie for the attention of Wonder."

He paused, clearly wanting a response from me. I took a deep breath and continued to inspect the buildings that we passed. Too small, too large, insecure flooring, tilting roof…

"Because Wonder, apparently, comes from a family that is completely _loaded_." The blond boy kicked a stray piece of granite; it missed my leg by an inch. I suppressed my frustration.

"I bet, if she hadn't gone into Training, she wouldn't have had to work a day in her life! Now where's the logic of signing up for a death sentence when you have money coming out your—"

"A death sentence?" Router chuckled from my right. "She's got more of a chance than you. Sorry to break it to ya, pretty boy."

"Excuse you, emo kid. I was addressing the lady."

"A lady that can kick your scrawny ass."

I felt it then, the sudden impulsion of a power shift. The cockiness that fueled the swagger in Sebastian's step was wounded, and Router had a tiny bit more of my confidence.

It was easy to sense how dangerous the Four boy was feeling without even turning around.

"She can kick my ass whenever she wants. That'd be a fair fight. You, on the other hand, would lose all that metal in your face faster than you could even reach for that useless empty gun."

There was a momentary flare in testosterone, but Router was smarter than that. Luckily.

See anywhere good?" he asked me courteously, turning to shut Sebastian out of the loop entirely.

I pointed down the long street. "See the green building on the corner? I think it's a hotel."

Slink whistled. "Jackpot!"

And for the first time that day, Taia spoke. "Are you sure that would be such a good idea?"

Sebastian's teasing didn't bother me. Slink being a jackass didn't bother me. It didn't even _really_get to me that Router and Mia had the advantage of gun knowledge . But the tiny Four girl who had yet to help this alliance at all? Questioning my decisions?

I stopped walking.

"Why not?" I asked politely, still not turning to face her but instead imagining the cutesy look she would be pulling.

"Well… it has multiple floors. And the foundation is almost definitely not sturdy, so it could collapse and kill us."

"The foundation is almost definitely sturdy. See how the whole thing is made of steel and wrought iron instead of wood? It will hold up a lot better than these flimsy wood buildings." With another deep breath of the burnt-rubber scented air, I continued on my way. Now that she'd piped up, we were staying in the green hotel—no doubt in my mind about that. _Almost definitely not sturdy_…

"I think it's a good choice," Mia offered thoughtfully. "It should be accustomed to people living in it."

"I second that," Sebastian piped up spitefully. I took another deep breath.

The building looked as though it had once been the center of the town. Five blackened silver stars adorned its front underneath a title whose letters had fallen off, and left unbleached silhouettes in their places. The setting sun glinted off the corners of the stars, sharing just a hint of their former glory.

"_The Sampson_. Fancy shit," Slink muttered.

"With a revolving door and everything? You can sure pick 'em." Sebastian craned his neck to admire the entire façade of the dusty hotel. Especially next to its neighbor, whose roof seemed to be made of straw, the _Sampson_was definitely a sight to behold. It occupied the entire corner of the square, its front lined with windows that had once held pictures of some sort of flower and sun, but were now bashed in and cracked beyond recognition. Their remains were scattered about the carpeted floor of the lobby just inside.

Router stepped forward hesitantly, extending an arm to reach one of the panes of glass lodged in the revolving door. He pushed gently, then jumped back slightly as the glass splinted under the pressure.

"Careful there, metal face. Might be delicate."

Router shot Sebastian a look before dusting the glass shards off his jacket and jeans. The door seemed happy enough to rotate when he pushed it on the wooden frame. It squealed like an old couch being squished under a Capitolite, but held up just fine as it made its lazy rotations, ushering Router in.

"It's fine!" he called from the dark lobby. "Just push it slowly."

We all hesitated a moment, watching the still-spinning door. Then Mia slipped in, swiftly followed by Slink and Sebastian. Taia watched the door apprehensively.

"After you," I said dryly, hoping she caught on to how much I didn't want to be left out here with her. She smiled acidically and slipped into one of the door slots.

It was my first time in a revolving door and my first time in a fancy hotel lobby. Wooden panels coated the walls, their finish chipping off in large flakes. A front desk complete with a rusty call bell faced us, hardly illuminated by the dying sun in the street.

"Six rooms, please, monsieur… _Merci_…" Sebastian mused, pulling a flashlight out of one of his packs and quickly finding the staircase leading up to the rooms.

Mia eyed the tack board behind the desk. "Think we'll need a key?"

"I don't think any lock could really be that strong," Slink answered absent-mindedly, following Sebastian to the narrow stairs. I found a flashlight in one of my packs, as well, and was immediately glad to be rid of the steel thing's weight. It took a couple of tries, but the switch eventually agreed to stay in the "on" position and the yellowish light fetched out the fine furniture decorating the large room.

"You coming?" Router asked from the base of the stairs once everyone else had filed up.

An old sofa, two winged armchairs, an overturned coffee table… a couple of newspapers, a tea tray with cups… There they are…

I crossed over to the once-posh sitting area, scooping up the white, half-burned candles that adorned one of the side tables. "These might come in handy."

The Two boy nodded and quickly came over to help carry the thick cylinders.

Lodging the flashlight in one of my armpits, my arms full of candles and two packs swung over my shoulders, I tottered unsteadily up the tiny, rickety stairs. Each one complained as I stepped on it, the wimpy beam from my flashlight bobbing as I climbed. The stairs curved, spiraling onto themselves and transitioning from carpeted to bare wood as we grew higher. Router's breath behind me grew slightly ragged, and the slightest bit of claustrophobia threatened at the back of my brain as every bump of my shoulders against the peeling cream walls became unbearably annoying.

And then the stairs stopped. And were replaced by a rickety, antique hallway lined with doors. Or, in some cases, just doorways were doors used to be.

"Slink?" Router called gruffly down the hallway. The rooms absorbed his voice, eating the echo. "They're probably down there…"

He bumped my back gently to indicate I should keep walking. But there was something wrong with the situation. Something very wrong.

"Let's just keep walking. They're probably up another floor," Router said lowly, slipping past me roughly.

That's when their voices started.

"They already passed, let's go, let's go…" a young feminine one begged in a whisper.

"No, there's more of them. There's six." That was a distinctly older male.

"Please, please let's just… let's get out of here!"

"Shut up! There's more coming!"

Router and I had both begun drifting toward the source of the worried whispers, walking as lightly as we could with such full arms.

"Please! I'm scared!"

"I know! Just… shut up for like two more minutes. Just wait for them to pass."

A high whimper responded, followed by the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

Router kicked open the offending door with the toe of his boot. And dropped his armful of candles.

Two tributes cowered in the back corner of the dark room. Router glanced at me.

The little girl screamed.

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><p><strong>Filler chapter... setting development... next one should be pretty awesome, though! I think I'm going to go back to my usual schedule of updating every weekend. It's a lot easier on me and should give me time to produce better stuff than this. It also gives you a regular update schedule to look forward to :)<strong>

**Review!**

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy<strong>

**Another Monday note: I am feeling terribly uninspired. Even after haunting the theater all week, while a run of Little Shop of Horrors ended and Julius Caesar opened, my creative juices are just... bleh. So. In your review, any amazing books/movies read/seen lately?**


	14. Delilah

**It's most likely still the weekend somewhere. Just sayin'.**

**The wonderful (?) Abel from Nine is here to serenade us with his teenage worries. So I kind of lied about this chapter being awesome. Enjoy.  
><strong>As always, thanks to my wonderful beta (Writting2StayHalfSane) for not only keeping witchcraft and incorrect medical information out of this chapter, but also taking arms on my side of the war against commas. That's one piece of puncuation that screws with flow, and the Abel in my head might not need (or need) a comma where one can't grammatically be. But that's what betas are for!

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><p>The day had been cold. Annoyingly so—not just nippy, or the kind of chill that makes you jumpy, but real, bone-chilling cold. I didn't think I had felt my skin since the moment I had stepped off the plate. Which turned out to be a bonus, because it's way better to just be completely numb and oblivious to the kind of cold that's trying to eat you whole than it is to actually be experiencing it every single second. Within thirty seconds of the Games beginning, however, I found that having an injury plus being numb canceled out the numb. Like how a positive and a negative multiply to get a negative. Numb plus pain equals cheeseburger of frozen pain. Numb plus pain plus running for fifteen minutes equals as close to hell as I ever thought I could get. But the award goes to freezing plus blood loss plus concrete plus pussy stuff coming out of my leg plus creepy arena minus supplies and food all divided by two. The two being me and this tiny girl who I ran into. Literally.<p>

But really, the day being cold couldn't even hold a candle to the night being cold. And of course the arena was designed to amplify and echo the cold at every possibly moment, completely void of any plants or grass to soften the icy air… the concrete gleefully accepted the temperature and radiated it back out. And everything was made of concrete. Or wood. Or metal, the king of all cold materials.

No bunny-populated, lightly wooded arena for us. I would have much preferred last year's arena, which was this giant island thing with sweet-ass palm trees and ponds and sand to this shit. Minus the creepy fish people, of course. And horse-ish things that turned homicidal at the very end. But still. Sunny blue sky, ocean not too far away, plants to use as tools or whatever; that sounded like paradise to me.

None of this city shit. They'd never done anything man-made like this as an arena before… I could see why. It was _hell_ to live in. Absoloutely nothing about this environment was helpful to the tributes. Except maybe the provision of shelter—which struck me as hugely ironic, seeing as shelter-building had been the _only_ thing I'd excelled at in the Training Center. I could probably make a lean-to out of old shutters and doors if I really felt like it, but there was absolutely no need with all these buildings around.

And I really didn't feel like doing anything at the time. In the bloodbath a Career jackass had taken a swipe at my shin that basically took all the skin off, almost to the bone. I still couldn't quite make myself look straight at it but had a pretty graphic mental image of what it probably looked like. Certainly hurt like a bitch. And of course there's no walking, or crawling, or limping away from the Cornu. You get to the horn, grab something,then _split shit_. Everyone knows that if you hang around, dying will be your first arena accomplishment. And that definitely wasn't on my list.

So after grabbing a pack, fucking _dropping_ it, getting my leg almost chopped off by a weapon I didn't even know the name of, and screaming like a little girl, I'd run in a random direction in the general air of _get me the hell out of here_. The adrenaline had been a huge help for the first five minutes or so; there was enough chemicals and panic rushing to my head that I couldn't be worried by the fact that my jeans were being soaked through with blood. Or that I could feel the flap of skin flopping around as I ran. I just ran down one block, came to an intersection, picked a random direction and took it. I only ran into a couple of kids on my way, and every time I think we were both so scared by the meeting that we took off in opposite directions before we could even tell who the other person was. Fine by me. I was in a hell of a mood.  
>Then, at some point in the next hour or century, I stopped. Partly because I couldn't breathe, partly because I couldn't think, and partly because I was about ready to grab a shard of broken glass and just chop the damn leg off. It'd probably hurt less that way, I'd figured.<p>

Feeling like a total drunk, I staggered to the sidewalk and out of the road. The severe planes and angles, all grey with yellow halos, swirled in a disgusting mix of ash and age before my eyes. My pulse was all I could hear and feel, and every single beat of my heart seemed strong enough to knock me over. It was almost painful, how much blood my body was trying to circulate. So I leaned my head into the window frame of the building I was nearest to and puked my guts out. All the nice Capitol food left in a wholly unsatisfactory burst, and I slouched there, heaving for all my might while trying to breathe, for a few minutes more than I needed to.

I think I cried then. Only a tiny bit, but it helped a lot more than the barfing had. The cameras that were probably broadcasting my embarrassing moment didn't cross my mind once. My plans to always look like I knew what I was doing were shot to hell. And I was genuinely the most miserable that I had ever been in my entire life.  
>I realized a while later, sitting with my back against the building and ass on the icy concrete, that tiny shards of concrete and wood slivers were lodged in the skin of my palms. I had re-established my numbness, which was a relief. My body hated that most of it was completely cut off from feeling, but my left leg felt like it was on fire. I kind of took a moment to do a once-over and inspect which parts of me still felt like working. Brain, definitely not. Eyes seemed fine enough after being cleaned out by tears. Still couldn't hear anything but my pulse, but there probably wasn't much else to hear at that point; the bloodbath canons and screaming had long since stopped, and no one nearby was being murdered. I rolled my shoulders, which didn't feel good at all. They were all cramped up and tense from the temperature and the multiple falls I'd taken on my way here. There was a sizeable patch of shred marks on the left shoulder of my leather jacket; I must have taken a tumble onto it at some point. My lips resisted movement, even just to lick them, having tightened up and dried out during my run. Torso seemed fine enough, though my chest was still heaving and tight. There was a definite stitch in my side that snarled and clawed at me with every breath; I tried to nurse it by bending into a ball. I knew that really I should have straightened my spine, lifted my arms above my head and breathed deeply, but I could think of many good reasons why I would never do any of those motions again.<br>As my head started to slowly clear, a throbbing in my left hip became apparent. Just a bruise, probably, I told myself. But I unbuckled my jeans and tugged down the side of my underwear just to check anyway—bright purples, blacks, and blues greeted me. It sort of looked like a constellation. It was very obvious where the seams of my jeans had bit into the flesh; they traced easy to see patterns in the mother of all bruises. It quickly became too cold to have that much flesh showing, and I buckled back up with a new awareness of that hip. Must have eaten shit a couple of times then. Once on my shoulder, once on my hip…

I couldn't care less about the condition of my thighs, considering the shape my shin was in. From my knee to my boot my jeans were now stiff, saturated with blood and dirt and sporting a huge hole that let in cold air like an open window. I took a deep breath and leveled my line of sight straight across the street in an attempt to mentally prepare myself for the sight of my shin.

And just before I was about to pick the denim out of my flesh, a movement in the shop directly across from me caught my eye. A flash of hair. Dirty blond, too long to be a boy's. And a set of wide brown eyes, clearly watching me.

_What the hell_. Anger was the fastest thing to surface, wiping away all my self-pity and even some of the physical pain. Some kid had been watching me? Watching me puke my guts out, watching me cry into my knees, watching me pull my pants half-off to check out my injuries? And it was a chick, too. I was going to _murder_ her. Slowly.

I got to my feet, becoming instantly dizzy by the fast movement. The street swam for a few seconds, bleaching out as if I was about to faint, but I forced one foot out in front of the other and I was able to see where I was going after a couple of stubborn seconds. By then, of course, the small girl had jumped out of the window and taken off down the street. Her footsteps were loud and slapping against the concrete like clackers, so by hearing alone I could have tracked her. I would get a glimpse of some hair, or the edge of her jacket as she whipped around the corners of blocks of buildings, but our speeds were evenly matched so I could only gain on her slowly. A completely irresponsible anger was bubbling up inside me, somehow lending the energy and intent to hunt the girl down. I didn't even know what I was going to do when I found her. I wasn't entire sure I could kill her. Or had the means. But I certainly wanted to.

Concrete streets turned into uneven, cobblestone drives that infuriated my leg and twisted my ankle. She began to slow, though she was still clearly being driven by fear. A gravel road sprouted out of the end of the cobblestone one, and the buildings started to look older and more antiqued. Not like I cared. It didn't change shit.  
>And finally, the girl figured out it might be easier to escape me <em>inside<em> one of the buildings. It seemed to be a panicked decision, seeing as she started running in a sort of zig-zag, looking for an open door to dart into. She finally commited, scrambling through the shattered display window of a jeweler's shop. I did notice how the jagged edge of the window caught her leg and pulled a long red line down her thigh—this made me happy, in a twisted, backwards way that I didn't want to give too much thought to in that moment.

On a head refreshed with adrenaline, I dove through the window after her. She heard me crash into the shop, responding with a childish scream that made me want to throttle her more. If she was going to mess with me _and_ attract more, dangerous tributes then she definitely had this coming…

She was slowed down considerably by the inside of the building—being in front, she had to open doors and kick through cluttered hallways, clearing a path for me. We were making such a racket, but I couldn't bring myself to care; this child had to be disposed of. Immediately.

And then I _was_ close enough. And I took a dive for her skinny ankle.

She screamed again as she came tumbling down, catching her chin on a bench she'd been trying to climb over. The snap was audible even from my position behind her. But that didn't even register. Her loose, booted foot flailed aimlessly, clearly trying to find my face as she reached with her arms for anything she could grab hold of. My other hand got a grip on her calf, and I dragged myself up to get my body weight pinning her legs down. Her entire tiny frame trembled and rattled like a dry leaf, and I couldn't tell if it was just her breath causing the vibration or if she was still trying to kick free.

I scooted up a tad higher, wrestling with her legs and reaching for her throat—

And then my vision popped, and I completely forgot about holding her down at all as a pain exploded in my head and ceramic shards showered me. I was numbly aware of her wriggling free but couldn't register much of anything for a few crucial seconds.

If I had manned up and grown a set in those few seconds, I probably could have stopped her right before she left that shop. I could have easily cut off her air supply, having made my first kill and having one less kid to worry about.

If I could have had my wits about me maybe three seconds faster, then that small girl would have been cleaned up and taken care of before I had to chase her down the road. And she would have been dead before I followed her through the revolving door of that one old building. I wouldn't have had to dodge the candle she threw at my head. I wouldn't have had to chase her up the rickety old stairs.I wouldn't have had cornered her in one of the tiny rooms. She wouldn't have screamed, and I wouldn't have had to put a hand over her mouth, because I wouldn't have heard someone coming.

And then, I wouldn't have tried to make a run for it out of the hotel room, just to see the shadows of other people coming up the stairs. I wouldn't have had to dive back into the room as silently as I possibly could, not being able to get over to the corner the girl was huddled in because I thought it would be too loud.

And I wouldn't have held my breath as the shadows of four tributes passed, talking easily with one another in the sort of confidence only Careers have. I wouldn't have thought I was going to just pass out right then and _die_ of the fear that one of them would hear us.

I wouldn't have had a stupid whispered conversation with the girl after the group had passed, unable to even get over to her because I couldn't breathe, and thought I was going to throw up again, and felt like my leg was being eaten from the inside out. That conversation wouldn't have attracted the other two Careers, they would not have found us, and that little girl wouldn't have been killed by someone else.

If I had gotten to my feet a little faster in the jewelry shop, then I would not have been faced with two huge Careers.

But it's me we're talking about here.

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><p><strong>A quick chapter, so maybe a quick review?<strong>

The next chapter is already in the works, hopefully off to the beta by Wednesday night...? I felt like we needed this chapter first, though, because as an HG writer I tend to lean on the happier, "everyone has food and can walk" side of the Games. Which wouldn't actually be the case, of course, but going back and reading LYGB I realize that every single character had a pack, or some other access to water at all times, and never even really bitched about being hungry. This arena should be a bit tougher.

And my inspiration is back! In the form of OHMYGAWD THE MOVIE IS COMING OUT IN LIKE TWO WEEKS. Meeting Josh, Liam and Jen didn't hurt either. Especially in my Effie heels.  
>Am I the only writer on here who is trying to pack in as much material as I can before the film comes out and my view of Panem is completely changed? And am I the only one who is SO FREAKING EXCITED!<p>

As usual, my A/Ns combined are probably longer than the chapter... sigh. Review? Pwitty please?

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy<strong>


	15. Fingernails

**Alrighty, then. Arden, from 10.**

**Sorry about no update last week, but I spent most of my time sitting in long lines waiting outside of a certain Microsoft store... The first half of this chapter was typed on my iPhone while doing said sitting. But it paid off! I got to meet Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and (gasp-faint) Liam Hensworth! SQEEE!**  
><strong>OBVIOUSLY, I needed all of Sunday to recover from meeting Katniss alone. So not much writing happened. This is the last chapter before the premiere- are you guys ready?<strong>

**As always, thanks to Writting2StayHalfSane. Who reminds me to keep some of my dashes- to myself.**

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><p>The good news was that I was alive.<p>

The bad news was pretty much everything else.

That actually might be pessimistic, but it sure as hell was what I felt like. I was jumpy and tense and generally extremely unhappy with myself for not pulling it together at the Cornucopia. Sure, I'd run as soon as the signal went off, but I wasn't nearly fast enough. I don't even know why I tried for it. I was up, reaching the outskirts of the scattered supplies, grabbing a handful of random crap before tripping and executing a face plant on the concrete. I narrowly avoided what would have been a fatal blow to the back from the One girl. Then I got myself out of there as fast as my feet would carry me.  
>Which, in this damned arena outfit, was not very fast.<p>

But that had been the day before. It was the first sunrise of the arena, and I was alive to see it. That should have been enough for me.

The colors of the sky weren't nearly as bright nor as deep as the ones that greeted Ten every morning. I couldn't help but blame the cold for that—it seemed to water down any hint of color in the entire arena. Every pink was greyish. Every red was brownish. And everything was cold.

During the night, I had decided that it would be a good idea to sleep up high—something that I had little reasoning for besides a couple of the old arena tapes my mentor had had us watch back in the Training Center. Kids who slept up trees or on high ledges seemed to have better luck overnight than those who camped on ground level. Being from a District whose flatness was only rivaled by maybe Eleven, heights weren't something I coped well with. But when it came down to being Career pickings or hoofing it up a roof, I didn't allow myself much of a choice.

So the night had been spent with too much worrying, not enough sleep, and so much shivering that I had been worried that I would be permanently shaking.

My back hurt from the shingles of the old shop I'd scaled. My ankle hurt from where I'd twisted it at the Cornu. And my nose hurt and felt very off from my sheer clumsiness. I couldn't help but to groan slightly as I curled up into a sitting position.

The sunrise lit up the city from behind, casting all the buildings into great black silhouettes. I'd never seen a city skyline before, except for a small glimpse from the Capitol, but I was fairly certain that most cities had more regularly leveled buildings. From my vantage point, I could make out a castle-type piece of work cozied right up to a hut that could very well have been made of mud. Beside them was a very uniform, right-angles kind of shape that was probably some modern, Capitolesque place.

My hand found a piece of moss to pick at— little pieces of the spongy stuff wedged themselves beneath my fingernails, but I couldn't really care less. It felt kind of nice, in a weird way.

And I don't know how long I sat there like that. I don't know how long it takes the arena sun to get all the way up to the sky, but it definitely wasn't noon when I snapped out of my little reverie. I rolled over to get on my knees, painfully meeting a hard lump of something in the process. Swearing, I moved off of it to discover I'd just broken the bow I'd snatched at the Cornu. It was a little thing, clearly too thin to really be of any help and I hadn't managed to locate any arrows anyway, but having a weapon of any sort had been a comfort. Too bad I was too much of an idiot to let that one last.  
>Grumbling, I tried to fit the two pieces back together, but they refused. I glanced at the two other objects I'd snatched- a bottle of some clear liquid that one sniff had told me wasn't water, and a very small box of bandages. And not those big, wrapping bandages for serious wounds (or maybe even a broken nose if you didn't have any other first aid experience and it seemed like a good idea); these were the tiny adhesive ones for paper cuts. Why the Gamemakers even bothered putting them in here at all was beyond me.<p>

Acting on impulse, I plucked up the little tin box and drew it back over my head, prepared to chuck it as far as I could over the buildings whose faces I could now make out. But something stopped me just as I was about to gain momentum—a voice. Or rather, two voices.

Perhaps my best luck in the arena had been that I hadn't run into anyone yet, not even in passing. As soon as I'd left the main square the only shadow I'd chased had been my own. I could probably credit my life to that, and so I instantly kicked into panic mode as the two people drew closer beneath my building. Not Careers, I begged in my head, feeling myself lose any spine I'd had. Not Careers.

But there were clearly only two, and they were both guys. Judging from every single one of the old Games we'd watched, the Careers would do their damnest to move as a pack of six. I couldn't think of any reason that they would purposefully split up. But then again, I couldn't think of really anything in my little puddle of adrenaline.

"We'll be fine. It's okay. We just know where they are now, which is good. Isn't that a good thing?" one of the guys was telling the other in a gentle tone that reminded me randomly of the voice I used to coax a frightened colt out of its box. So these two were allies, clearly.

The other guy coughed. "Yeah. Yeah that's good. Now we know." It might have just been the fear influencing his tone, but this guy had a much higher, melodic voice than his ally.

"What we can't do," the first guy continued, more firmly now, "is get shaken. What you're doing right now is called getting shaken."

"No it's not!" the second boy snapped back, but he lacked any real authority. His attitude was stemmed much more off fear than anger.

"Then _stop_ freaking out about it."

"They could have killed us!"

"They didn't even see us."

"But we were _that close_ to dying! Doesn't that bother you?" Their clumsy footsteps stopped. Judging by the echo, I guessed they were now directly below the awning of my building. I did my best not to breathe, still not knowing exactly who I was eavesdropping upon or, more importantly, if they were armed.

"I just can't afford for that to get to me," the first guy responded lowly. There was a moment of silence between them, then he continued. "And neither should you."

"You're right," the higher-voiced boy said softly. The door directly below me whined as it was opened, and I tensely listened as the two sets of boots made their way into the shop.

Got to get out of here. Got to get out of here. I stuffed the bandages and bottle into my boot; they were a bit too big to travel there comfortably, but didn't seem likely to fall out anytime soon. I actually took a half a second to consider whether I should take or leave the broken bow before deciding that even broken, it was _something_. I tucked the halves into the back of the waist of my jeans, where they wouldn't interfere with my arms.

Heart racing, I glanced around the roof, trying to remember exactly which route I'd taken to get up here.

"So the Careers seem hunkered down, for the moment."

"That's good," the second guy's voice carried throughout the little building.

Finding a ledge that at least seemed horizontal, I skittered my way over to the side of the building, overlooking an alleyway. The neighboring building's roof was about two feet higher than the one I was on, and the space between them was probably five feet. I'd never prized myself on jumping ability, but if I could make it over then I'd be a safe distance from the tributes below me.

Of course, if I missed, it would be a three-story fall into concrete, probably clipping some part of me on the uneven walls on my way down. If I landed right, it would be a fairly quick death. But more likely, I'd just snap my spine in the most painful way possible, leaving myself crippled to scream until other tributes found and killed me.

"Is it too early for breakfast?"

"I don't know if we have breakfast."

My heart stopped, every one of my flailing limbs freezing with it. These were not the same voices as the two who'd just entered the shop. These were new. Had they been there all night? Had I really missed the fact that I was sleeping right over top of another pair of kids?

"We have the jerky, right?"

"We don't know how long we're going to need that, remember?"

"Oh. I'm sorry, my stomach's just getting the best of me."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to it."

Both were crackly, and accented by yawns. They were clearly just waking up. A girl and a guy. I racked my brain for any alliances I'd observed in the Training Center, and absolutely _knew_ which two kids were right below me but couldn't place them in my brain. I'd seen them going from booth to booth together, helping each other in a way that was friendly enough to have been intra-District. They were both from… Jesus, Seven? Nine?

"I think, as long as we steer clear of that corner, we should be okay." Back to the first guy, from the street. His voice was steadier than his ally's, and slightly louder. My own pulse charged in my ears as I realized what was about to happen before it actually did.

My instinct to flee was overwhelming, and in an act of split-second decision making, I gripped the edge of my roof in both hands and lowered myself down the wall, swinging my feet wildly for a foothold. I had no plan, other than to somehow climb down the wall and get away from the meeting that was about to happen.

"Do you hear that?" the girl was hissing to her sleepy ally. Fear was very apparent in her tone.

"Yes," he breathed back. Floorboards squeaked as they moved around the room.

"What are we going to do?" the girl begged in a terrified whisper.

My boot caught hold of a ledge. I scooted it over to accommodate the other foot. The shift in my weight registered in my hands, though. The shingles I was so desperately gripping decided in that moment to give way.

"This seems like a pretty safe place to be, at least for the time being," the first street guy was assuring his partner. Their voices were just a wall's protection away from the other pair. The girl squeaked.  
>The two rough shingles grated the skin off of my palms as they slid forward<em>. Oh, no<em>, I begged them silently_. Please don't—  
><em>  
>They fell, smacking the top of my head on their way down. I let out an involuntary yell of pain and surprise, doing my best to keep my balance on the balls on my feet. But I fell anyway.<p>

And then a bunch of things happened. The first thing I registered was the door opening to the room I was dangling outside of. The second was a surprised yelp that was probably from the boy with the high voice. And the third was a set of sturdy arms around my legs, tugging me very suddenly through a window whose sill I had apparently been standing on.

The girl screamed, I crashed to the ground right inside of the window, the bow bit into my lower back and then everything was very, very still.

"Shit." The single word came from the doorway of the old-fashioned living room. I pulled myself upright as slowly and non-threatening as I could, trying to get a grip on what was happening.

The redhead from Seven stood just inside the room, followed closely by the boy from Five. The set of boots directly by my shoulder, that I assumed belonged to the person who'd grabbed me, led up a skinny set of legs and to the willowy frame of the Eight boy. A few feet away stood the Eight girl, completely frozen with shock.

"We don't have any weapons," was the first thing the redhead seemed to think to say.

"Neither do we," replied the Eight boy from above me. He seemed to be the least afraid of the group. The tension in the air was terrible—though it held much more uncertainty and sheer nervousness than that spark before a fight. Having been in many a rumble myself, that spark was something I was keenly aware of. It happened when two drunk guys looked at each other the moment before one threw a punch. It happened the second a Peacekeeper sees the fruit a kid's stealing.

And it definitely wasn't happening in that little living room.

"Leave," the girl whispered. Her eyes caught the Five boy's desperately. "Leave and go really far away."

"Why shouldn't we kill you?" he tried to challenge her, but it fell flat.

"That wouldn't turn out well for anybody, I don't think," the Eight boy offered honestly.

"You just told them you're not armed," I pointed out, feeling the shock of the situation wane away with the idea that I was in danger. I clearly wasn't. The numbing adrenaline left slowly, revealing how beat up I actually was.

The Seven and Five boy seemed to just then realize I was in the room. Seven staggered back a step, seeming to have not only recognized me but also made up his mind. "Let's go," he quietly prompted his ally, who blocked his way back into the hall. "Let's not get involved here. Let's just go."

"I'm not shaken," the Five boy felt compelled to tell his ally. Their roles had reversed since they'd talked underneath the awning.

"I know. They don't want to hurt us." His green eyes searched the Eights' faces.

"We don't. Just get out of here." The Eight boy moved back to the big window overlooking the street. Turning his back on the intruders struck me as an incredibly bad move, but the boys didn't act on it. The Five boy turned very suddenly and jogged back down the hall, seeming keen on taking the Eight boy's advice. And the Seven boy looked straight at me, quite fearful, before doing the same.

I got my feet underneath myself, wincing at the plethora of pain that bloomed in my back. Staggering like an old man, I found the wall and leaned against it.

"Sorry I was kind of rough," the Eight boy piped up, noticing my condition. "I just saw you about to fall, and just had to help, ya know?" I didn't reply, but this didn't seem to discourage him. "I mean, _great_ job with the sneakiness. I didn't even know you were up there until you were hanging right outside the window. You're good at this whole Games thing."

"Thanks," I grunted through clenched teeth. I tried to straighten up, but my back wouldn't allow it. An embarrassing yelp escaped me.

"Here, let me—" the girl crossed the room suddenly, extending her arms as if to help support me. She stopped, though, about a foot away, as if realizing what she was doing. "You're not going to hurt us, right?"

"No," I answered before I could even think it over. I clenched my teeth tighter to try and remain conscious; black and yellow spots were blurring my vision.

"Do you have any weapons?" she demanded.

I just groaned as I started to double over. She lurched forward, about to help but stopping herself again.

"Do you have any weapons?" she asked, more firmly this time.

"Yes," I gasped, pain rushing in needles and tight currents from my back.

"Where are they? Do you have a pack?"

"No. It's," I took a sharp breath, trying to kindle my speech and clinging to consciousness at the same time. "It's in my jeans. In the back."

I did fall over then, doubling at my waist and trying to grip the wall with my hands. Expecting to smash my nose against the ground again, I braced myself—

But two small arms were doing their best to keep me upright, and I was suddenly pressed against this small girl. She smelled good.

Her hands searched awkwardly down my spine, flitting gently underneath my leather coat and tugging up the hem of my shirt to find the bow pieces. Her cold hands felt amazing on the blazing skin of my back; I leaned against her, almost gratefully, and she took an unsteady step back, trying to support me.

"Scrim?" she asked in an odd, high-pitched tone.

"What? Oh, sorry!" The boy was next to her in a flash, plucking the bow from my jeans and hooking his arms underneath mine to haul me off his ally and across the room. Together they shoveled me onto a little couch, and as soon as my spine was no longer responsible for holding me upright, the pain subsided greatly.

Feeling terribly defenseless, and realizing that I was trusting the Eights _way_ too quickly, I allowed the girl to perch on the cushion by my legs with a piece of what looked like a curtain.

"You've got blood all over your face," she informed me, seeming exasperated that I wasn't aware of this.

"I do?"

"Yeah. Just hold still." And without further invitation, she just went to work pawing at wiping at my face with the dry cloth.

"We need to get it wet or something," the boy, Scrim, noted idly.

"The bathrooms have running water, barely, but I don't know if it's clean enough…" But Scrim was already gone, having snatched away her curtain scrap and sloped out of the room.

"You hurt your back?" she asked me gently. The room seemed very big without the tall boy occupying it.

"Um, I guess," I answered stupidly, eyeing the cracked and peeling ceiling.

"And your nose?"

"I think it's broken. That was the Careers."

"At the Cornucopia?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." She paused, watching her hands. "I mean, not saying you should, but my friend Annie was dropped once in dance and she fell right on her face, and—" she caught me watching her and looked pointedly away, slowing her speech. "And I re-broke it for her. So that it would set straight." The sounds of old pipes being woken up came from the ceiling and walls. A triumphant yell emerged from a small door down the hall, and the girl grinned a tiny, mothering grin.

"You want to break my nose?" I clarified after a moment.

"No! Oh, no, not unless you want me to, I mean, if you're okay with the bend in it, that's fine, that's up to you, I think it makes you look tough, ya know, like you've been in a lot of fights… which you have, right? Or, I mean, never mind…"

She looked back down at her hands awkwardly.

"You saw my reaping, eh?"

She nodded.

"Right. Well. I would say don't judge a book by its cover, but that's all that's really in this book. That and—"

Scrim burst back into the room then, triumphantly holding the damp curtain. He scooted the girl out of the way hurriedly and offered me the rag. I took it and dabbed at my own face, with no idea where I was actually supposed to be cleaning but liking the feeling of the icy water on my skin.

"His back is hurt, too," the girl informed Scrim after I was finished.

His brow crumpled. "Did I do that?"

"I don't think so. Though you probably didn't help. Not that I'm complaining, I mean, you saved my life."

He brightened visibly. "I did, didn't I? Well, let's take a look then." Before I could protest, he was helping me out of my jacket and encouraging me to roll over onto my stomach. He yanked up the edge of my tank top, too, leaving my bare back exposed.

I rested my chin on the backs of my hands, reminding myself once more that I was being way too trusting but not really being able to bring myself to care. These two were possibly the least threatening tributes in the entire arena, and the only weapon they had besides their bare hands was my broken bow. I doubted either one of them had the strength or inclination to actually kill me with it though.

A pair of small, cold hands planted themselves on my skin suddenly, and I sighed audibly as they cooled the fiery pain blooming there.

"Does that feel good?" the girl asked, slightly awkward.

"Yes," I moaned, shifting so as to press myself more against her palms.

"Okay, I'm just going to keep doing this, then, okay? You're really swollen and… not healthy looking."

I just grunted and settled my cheek against my hands, not minding that I was with a girl on a shared couch and she was touching my bare skin. She was the boyish girl from the reapings, so not exactly a beauty, plus her touch wasn't anywhere near sexual. It did feel fantastic, though, and I thoroughly planned on not letting her leave until the pain settled down. She didn't seem to mind too much. Or if she did, she certainly wasn't showing it. Maybe she even liked it?

"So you're joining our alliance?" she asked a little while later. Scrim lounged on one of the big armchairs, looking up curiously at her question.

"Keep doing whatever you're doing and yes, absolutely," I mumbled against the pillow. She seemed to have heard me, though, because she flipped her hands over and pressed the backs against my skin, renewing the icy feeling.

"I'm Melanie, by the way," she said quietly.

"Arden."

* * *

><p><strong>In case you missed it, this chapter is costarring Melanie, Scrim, Birch and Jack. Five focus tributes in the same chapter! What is this? I guess I got a little lonely writing last chapter without any dialogue. Needed to throw half the freaking cast in at once.<strong>

If you've read all of this, all the way down to this line, then you must have some thoughts. Or if you're completely indifferent to this chapter, at least tell me what you think of the movie bits that have been released. Love it? Hate it? Review, darlings.

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy<strong>


	16. Beginners

**We now interupt your regular arena programming to bring you a chapter about Sparrow. So what if I am too attached.**  
><strong>If you don't know who this kid is, give <em>Let Your Games Begin<em> a flip through.**  
><strong>Ahem.<strong>

* * *

><p>"Mr. Kingston?"<p>

I closed my eyes and got close to praying. "Yeah?" _Don't be dead. Don't be dead. Don't you dare be dead._

"Phone."

Turning around to lean on the back of my captain's chair, I allowed myself to breathe again. They don't tell you that your kids are dead over the phone, right? Right. I confirmed that with the toes of my sneakers before heaving myself up and out of my cave of a control room to where my mentor assistant held up a slim piece of metal. I tried to give her a smile but failed pretty terribly as I took the thing and did my best to remember which way it went against my face.

"Sparrow?"

I tensed. "Lucian. Todd's still alive right?"

My old mentor's sigh was uncannily clear in my ear, almost like the grizzled man himself were standing right by me. "You've been watching your monitors, right?"

"Of course, but I just thought that maybe the cannon was delayed or the camera angle was weird or something—"

"Sparrow."

I took a deep breath and nibbled on my lower lip. It was a bad habit, but it helped with the stress and it was certainly a better vice than many of my fellow mentor's hobbies. "Right. Can I start over?" I cleared my throat. "Oh, hi, Lucian. So nice to hear from you. What can I do for you?"

"I have a slot for you set up at the sponsor lunch this afternoon. You're the main hit of the whole event, so I'm sorry but I'm not going to let you sit in front of your monitors and watch your kids bleed to death while you could be helping to save them."

"I know, but the thing is they're just kids and to be really honest," I lowered my voice and meandered back into my screen-lit control room, "I don't think they're really favorites this year."

"Stop that," my mentor snapped. "Stop giving up on them like that."

"I'm not giving up; I'm trying to be realistic!"

"No, what you're trying to do is be an adult."

I leaned against my slick steel door frame, my back to the long, slender white hallway and face lit with the cold light of the sixteen TV screens on the wall in front of me. "I thought that was what you wanted."

"I'm not your mentor anymore, Sparrow. I'm not responsible for your survival, and I can't tell you what to do."

"But that's what I want you to do! You got me in and out of that arena, and I'm asking you to help me do the same with these kids."

The air in my room was old and stale from hours upon hours' worth of breathing and worrying. That sort of thing would bother me normally, but I wasn't really entirely sure what normal was anymore, so it was something of an unattainable standard.

What I did know was that I was staying in a posh, near-penthouse room in the Training Center with Eleven's obnoxious escort and a fleet of Avox that creeped me out. I knew that my life consisted of waking up to a feast of a breakfast, being doted on by more pretty female Avox and hardly being able to swallow anything. Then I would be whisked down to the Gamemaker center via underground train on the arm of said escort ("To avoid your fans on the streets, of course!" she'd patiently explained when I asked about our sneaky transportation), where I would be polite to the Gamemakers and other mentors milling in the lobby before following the long hallway past the rooms of the mentors for Districts One through Ten, and assuming my position in my squashy chair in front of my monitors. And watching as many rotating cameras as possible, trying to keep track of everything going on in the massive city at once. Interrupted only by Avox delivering lunch, Avox retrieving said lunch and dumping the untouched food, and the occasional good-intentions visit from other mentors. The escort came back to get me (apparently I can't travel alone) at twenty two hundred hours on the dot, and I'm back in the Capitol bed by midnight. That is, of course, unless I stay in my control room overnight and fall asleep to the sounds of the arena. Something that I never thought I'd have to do again.

Lather, rinse and repeat. My Games life was an untouchable cycle of waiting. Waiting for either of my timid, generally unskilled but golden hearted tributes to get a cannon. At this point, I wasn't really being pessimistic with that statement, I was facing the facts. Still didn't make the process any more enjoyable.

"I think you and I both know that it wasn't me that got you out of that arena," Lucian said gently. I pinched the fine leather of my favorite chocolate brown gloves, channeling Ebony as best I could. She'd tell me, in her therapist voice, to calm down, to remember to breathe, and to find my focus. I tried to remember what that was.

"So the lunch?" I coughed into the phone, warily eyeing the monitors. Both Eights were still in their bakery, talking it up and playing nurse to the Ten kid… Careers were plotting in their hotel's penthouse… and other scattered tributes seemed to be pretty dormant in their respective hidey holes. Just as it had been. All day.

"Today at three. I think almost every mentor is going to be there, as well as a couple representatives from some pretty big name places. By big name, I mean big money. You can't miss this one."

"I never said I would," I snapped, before releasing the pinch of leather between my finger and thumb and exhaling. "Sorry. I'm a bit—"

"I get it. Just meet Starlet in the lobby at three. Do you want me to send an Avox reminder?"

"No, I can remember."

"Please do. Talk to you later."

I hesitated a moment, something I almost never did. Well, never did back in _Normal Land_, aka pre-Games. This was my normal now. Maybe I actually hesitated a lot here. "Lucian?"

He seemed caught off guard the slightest bit, clearly expecting me to have hung up. "Yeah?"

"How do they tell you… when your kid dies?"

Another one of his gruff sighs. "You'll know."

"But how? Is it like… a phone call? A buzzer? I mean, before the night time, when they'll obviously be in the sky…"

"I assume you haven't found the death board." It wasn't really a question, which just added to my constant feeling of being a kid in a grown man's game. He took my silence for an affirmative. "It's right outside the Master room, just head into that hallway and take a sharp right. Blue holographic. It's updated as soon as anyone dies, and lists all the dead kids… also details like where they kicked it, how, and who did them in. I figured it wasn't really your haunt, which is why I didn't point it out before."

My brain scrambled to remember the layout of the rat maze of a building I spent my days in. I had a hazy sort of idea where the board was, but a childish part of me made the decision to not check on it. He said I'd know. There were other ways, surely.

"That it?" he asked, slightly impatient, after my moment of silence.

"Oh, uh yeah that's it. And thanks."

He grunted over the line, and the phone registered a clean clicking noise to alert me that he'd hung up. I realized quickly that the device had no buttons, or any marks at all, and was quick to usher it back out to my assistant in the hall.

She snapped to attention as soon as I stepped out of my room. I held out the slice of steel gingerly. "Thanks."

"Of course, Mr. Kingston."

"Leah?"

She stowed the phone away in the bag she always kept strapped across her chest. "I mean of course, Sparrow."

Mentor assistants are a skip above Avox and a couple steps below escorts. They're Capitolites wanting into the system, and the assistant position is the primary job for an aspiring escort, or even an aspiring Gamemaker. Mine didn't talk much (I took it she was instructed not to bother me), but I had gotten her to tell me that she wanted to design arenas someday, and just being in the place where the "magic happens" was exciting for her. I tried to understand, I really did, but seeing this girl who looked maybe a year younger than me, so full of life and eagerness, aspiring to help glorify this annual mass slaughtering… it didn't sit well with me. So I'd given up on her as company and devoted most of my time to the screens and my own thoughts. Which weren't much better.

.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.:!:.

"Todd's got a lot of fight in him; he just needs a little help to get back on his game—"

The bluish man got slowly to his feet. "No thanks."

"But really, he's a survivor. He just needs some medicine for his hip and he'll be a contender—"

"Sorry. Good luck." He offered a sugar-coated apologetic smile before snatching up his satchel and gliding away from my semi-circle of bright orange furniture. I leaned against the back of my ridiculous egg chair and swore under my breath. Sponsors, it turned out, were occasionally intelligent. Sure, they had enough money to save every kid in the arena (theoretically), but it was a pride game for them. This was all one big betting game for these wealthy Capitolites—they only wanted to throw money at tributes that were winners. They had egos to match their bank accounts, and picking a winner was their goal.

Some silly part of me had thought that maybe some of the people who sponsored me last year would have a repeat performance. Maybe a shiny new Victor would be enough to coax a parachute out of them, but no such luck. They took one look at my tributes, and our meeting quickly became a begging session. And even though I was doing my very best to believe in my kids, I couldn't blame them. Todd was bleeding to death in an alley near buildings other tributes were occupying. It was only a matter of time before one of his neighbors found and killed him. He couldn't stand, much less walk. A sitting duck. During Training, I'd decided that he was my best bet, considering how intelligent the kid was. Sure, he couldn't use any weapons and was scared stiff of the idea of having to kill other kids, but I thought that maybe he'd have enough common sense to handle himself in the arena. One swipe of some Career's weapon and he was just about finished.

Nerine, the other kid I was in charge of, was doing considerably better. Which came as a surprise. Last time I checked, she was wandering the streets of the city by herself. She didn't have any food or water, or a pack, but she had managed to pick up a small knife at the Cornu that she occasionally talked to. My worries didn't revolve around her as much as they probably should have.

The next sponsor had a facial issue. Of the puffer-fish sort.

"Oh, Sparrow Kingston, how nice it is to finally meet you!" She offered a stick-thin hand. I shook it gently, careful not to break any of her bird bones hiding under the waxy skin. "You were one of my absolute favorites last year—just brilliant!"

"Thank you." I felt like cardboard. "I've been working with Todd and Nerine, and I really think that Eleven may have another success this year," I lied stiffly. My exhaustion was getting the better of me, and I could tell, but according to the large golden clock mounted on the southern wall of the marble hall, I only had three more minutes until I was allowed to return to my cave. I could do three more minutes.

"So I'm the financial advisor of the _Capitolite_," the strange woman lilted in her exaggerated Capitol accent, perching on the couch opposite me. Her eyes widened as she spoke. I did my best not to watch the clock. "And my gosh would I just kill to get you set up with an interview. I can picture the article now, front-page of course… _Victor to Mentor_, from a district of cows. What a success story!"

"Actually, Eleven is in charge of agriculture, not livestock—but, I mean, sounds interesting!" My tongue tripped over the words as a small part of my brain reminded me what I was trying to do here. "But you know who could really use the publicity? Todd. Or Nerine. You see, you could show your support for me by sending a little bottle of fairly inexpensive medicine out to him just to give him a fighting chance—"

She was examining her nails. Interest clearly lost. "Right, well, would you like to know something?"

I didn't respond.

"_I _think that there is a certain spark that a tribute must have in order to win. They have to _be_ a winner. You, darling, are a winner! The lovely boy from District Four is a winner! Maybe even that naughty rebel from District Ten, or cute girl from Seven, but—and I'll let you in on a secret here—I'm just not sensing that spark in your tributes this year." She got grandly to her feet, wobbling slightly on her pointy shoes. A slim piece of paper appeared from one of her stiff sleeves; she held it out to me. "Don't worry yourself, dear, there's always next year. Call me about that interview."

I took the golden card warily as she showed herself out. Fancy black letters glittered across the front; I couldn't even read the loopy font. Which bothered me, then got me thinking about the last time I'd needed to read something. I couldn't recall when that was. Of course I'd learned how in Eleven, but really they only taught it in the schools so that one, kids could read the labels on fertilizer, and two, other Districts and the Capitol wouldn't have any more incentive to think we're a District of dumb plant-dwellers.

Which was kind of ironic, considering there was very little in the Capitol that required reading. Most signs and advertisements were mostly symbols and pictures that made a "cleaner" impact than words. Capitol lingo revolved around simplicity and efficiency. Yet in a city where a red square on a sign post meant "President's Office, fifty meters," illiterate kids in Eleven would still be considered an atrocity.

Oh, Capitolites.

If you'd told me at this time last year that my favorite haunt was a tiny screen-filled room in the Gamemaker's Center, I would have laughed politely and excused myself to get as far away from you as possible. And I couldn't help wishing I was in that position now.

It was a relief to be shepherded back into my cave by my escort and left to drift slowly back to the dull state of mind I occupied most of the time. Eyes shifting slowly from screen, to screen, to screen… watching other tributes make plans, or enjoy meals, or even receive parachutes, but nothing new with either of my kids. Nothing was ever new.

Until.

At first, the top right-hand screen that my eyes tended to latch onto the most showed little more than what I already knew—Todd in the corner of an alleyway, the skimpy city light hardly casting onto his form at all, but I could still tell it was him. What wasn't his, however, was the arm. Stuck in the frame, followed closely by a body.

I jolted upright, spilling the top layer of my bubbly Capitol water but not minding the damp soaking into my gloves. My chair squealed in protest against the sudden movement, and I was vaguely aware of Leah coming into the room behind me. "Mr. Kingston…?" she asked quietly behind me.

I waved her down with an impatient hand, heart pounding as if it were _me_ sneaking into the camera frame, casting looks around the deserted street to make sure there were no other tributes around.

I'd thought I knew every single tribute's face, name and District by heart, but the adrenaline was getting the best of me and I couldn't place where the black-haired girl was from. Not a Career, that much was obvious not only by the fact that she was completely alone, but also that she carried only one skimpy pack and didn't seem to have any weapons at all. She was petite but womanly, and clearly pretty, even through the screen.

_Don't kill him_, I pled with her mentally, fingers clamping down on the arms of my chair. _Don't kill him. Don't kill him….  
><em>  
>She'd obviously spotted him. At first, it seemed like she considered running, but then she got a closer look of the state he was in, and approached slowly. She said something to him that came through the speakers as a fuzzy question. I grappled around my control desk until I found the volume dial for the screen; I cranked it up almost to maximum, determined not to miss their conversation.<p>

"Where are you from?"

I assumed she was repeating herself, judging by the louder, demanding tone she employed. Todd whimpered, then coughed.

"Eleven." Though it came out more like, "Lv'n."

"Do you have any weapons?" She took another step closer, and the camera zoomed drastically in—I glanced over to see that Leah had found the zoom dial and was watching the screen, just as ensnared as I was.

Todd shook his head violently. It looked like it hurt.

"Any supplies?" She peered into the shadows, squinting to try and make out the shapes in the dark.

Another shake.

It was obvious when she could make him out clearly, because she gasped and tripped a step back before regaining her control. "What happened to you?" she demanded coldly, swallowing hard.

Six. That's where she was from. She was the one with a kid.

"Careers." He winced, adjusting the newspaper he'd stuck on his wound. It did nothing to stop the blood flow, though, and it was clear that if she didn't kill him, then blood loss would. This wasn't news, but the zoomed in camera really drove the fact home. My heart sank.

"At the bloodbath?"

He nodded, wincing.

The girl paused, fully taking in the boy before her. "I don't know if I can kill you," she said quietly. "Mentally, I _think_ I'm ready for it, but I actually literally don't have anything to kill you with…"

"Please—please don't—"

"I'm sorry," she said softly, backing out of the alleyway. "I really am."

And then she screamed.

I dropped my glass, shattering it against the tile floor, and Leah fumbled around the control board until she could find the volume dial and crank it down. Thanks to the fancy Capitol technology, the scream had been crystal-clear, as if the Six girl was standing right in front of us. By the time I swore, kicked the glass out from under my chair and wiped off the water on the control board with my sleeve, the Six girl was long gone from the alley frame. The panic was evident on Todd's face as he sat himself up against the brick wall and did his best to stand—but failed. He settled for grabbing blindly at the pavement next to him, dragging himself along the ground in an attempt to get out of the alley. He trailed blood along with him.

In some distant part of my brain, I was aware that I couldn't move a muscle. Every nerve in my body went into shock mode, and I turned to stone, eyes glued unmovingly on the screen. _He's screwed now. He's going to die. I'm about to watch him die.  
><em>  
>Sure enough, the mixed bag of sounds that distinctly read <em>Career<em> came through the sound system as the pack sprinted for the alley. I hadn't even noticed them leave their hotel. I hadn't really given a damn about any other tributes, come to think of it. My tunnel-vision had helped me focus on my tributes, yeah, but had also blocked out a couple of important details. Like keeping track of the Careers or knowing how the other tributes were teaming up. I'm such an idiot. _Such_ an idiot.

The pack barreled into the shot. I gripped the edge of the control board harder, hard enough that I couldn't feel the pressure of the metal against my palm.

Todd's eyes widened in sheer fear, taking in the much bigger, much stronger and much more deadly tributes.

The One girl stood over him with an elegant sword balanced in her grasp; to her right hovered her District partner. Like a shadow that hardly registered on the screen at all was the Four girl in the very edge of the shot, watching it all with a tiny dagger hanging off her fingers.

"Please," Todd whimpered, far beyond the point of begging. I could hardly see his face over the shoulder of the One boy. "Please."

In a liquid movement, the One boy swung his mace up over his shoulder and surged forward, toward my little tribute, and delivered a carefully practiced blow to his skull.

Ice shot through me.

He raised the mace again, tugging it out of Todd's head and swinging it faster this time. Another horrible crunch. And another. And _another_.

_Give him a cannon_, I mentally begged with the screen. _Let him die already. Give the kid a damn cannon!  
><em>  
>Words were being exchanged between the One girl and boy. Angry words, impatient words. One of her arms snapped out to push him back, two steps away from my tribute. She swung her sword around, giving her wrist a momentary warm up before poising to strike—<p>

The tiniest flash of metal registered through the pixels, and then the resounding grumble of a cannon. Both Ones whipped around in shock, and the little Four girl's knife glinted against the gleam of blond on Todd's chest. He toppled over, his broken face cracking against the ground.

"What the hell?" the One boy hollered, rounding on the little girl.

"Was taking too long," she mumbled.

"And you're going to miss your dentist appointment or what? It was _taking too long_?"

She was silent for a moment, then her sharp gaze fixed itself on the One girl standing beside Todd's pulp. "I'm sure you would have done just fine with your sword, Wonder."

Wonder didn't seem convinced. All she did was stare right back.

The One boy eventually sighed, sauntered over to the body and planted a foot on Todd's neck before yanking out the Four girl's dagger and tossing it lightheartedly back to its owner. As if it were a pair of socks.

Then they left.

I didn't really know what to expect , or how to prepare myself for this moment. When the shot was empty of anything but the alley, the trash cans, and the bloody mess, it didn't hurt. At least not like I thought it might. In fact, it was hard to make my brain connect the thing in the screen to the bright-eyed boy from Eleven. They weren't even remotely the same.

A hand was hesitantly placed on my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Sparrow," Leah said quietly. I remained frozen. Eyes on the screen but not really seeing it.

"It's fine," I managed evenly.

"I know that Todd was your favorite and everything, and I really think sponsors would have liked him—"

"It's fine," I repeated in the same tone. She fell silent, took her hand off my shoulder and retrieved her bag from where she'd dropped it at the door. Silently, she left me to be alone with the screens and my hands.

Lucian had been right. I did know when my tribute died. Only I kind of wished I'd missed it and had to go looking for that screen.

I unlocked my muscles and leaned back into my chair, one arm clamped across my stomach and one lifted to my mouth. I nibbled at the tips of my gloves, unsure of what to look at. And I think I stayed like that for a long time.

* * *

><p>Begin the world's longest AN:

**SOO. I have come to a decision about this story. A couple, actually.**  
>First, I love it and want nothing more than to keep with it until the end. And second, it's super obnoxious when a story gets updated like once every three months... so what I think I'm going to do is just take my time and finish the damn thing. I have the next two chappies done. I just think it will work best to write the whole thing on my own time, then after they're all down in rough, send them off to beta dearest (<strong>Writting2StayHalfSane<strong>) and post them once or twice a week. I would expect them this fall.  
>So that's what's going to happen. I'm going to disappear with a reason this time.<p>

**But to keep ya busy:**  
>I'm not about to let this story go naked while a whole bunch of other ones get nifty new covers. No way. I think that's going to mean I'm going to need to brush off my (crappy) photographyphoto editing skillz and whip up something presentable. But in the mean time! If you think you have an idea or, better yet, a picture I could steal for _Among the Damned's _cover, please do drop me a line. Same goes for _Let Your Games Begin_. Believe it or not, people still read that.  
>In exchange for your creative genius, you will receive my eternal love.<p>

I think that's it. Enjoy your summer, everyone, and I'll clog your inboxes again when the sun goes away.

**It's your turn. Good luck.**  
><strong>Topsy<strong>


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